Collected Short Stories: Volume 1

  They finished and there was silence. There was silence in all the courts of heaven. Go to hell were the words that came to the Eternal’s lips, but he did not utter them, for they had a colloquial association that he rightly thought unfitting to the solemnity of the occasion. Nor indeed would such a decree have met the merits of the case. But his brows darkened. He asked himself if it was for this that he had made the rising sun shine on the boundless sea and the snow glitter on the mountain tops; was it for this that the brooks sang blithely as they hastened down the hillsides and the golden corn waved in the evening breeze?

  ‘I sometimes think,’ said the Eternal, ‘that the stars never shine more brightly than when reflected in the muddy waters of a wayside ditch.’

  But the three shades stood before him and now that they had unfolded their unhappy story they could not but feel a certain satisfaction. It had been a bitter struggle, but they had done their duty. The Eternal blew lightly, he blew as a man might blow out a lighted match, and, behold! where the three poor souls had stood – was nothing. The Eternal annihilated them.

  ‘I have often wondered why men think I attach so much importance to sexual irregularity,’ he said. ‘If they read my works more attentively they would see that I have always been sympathetic to that particular form of human frailty.’

  Then he turned to the philosopher, who was still waiting for a reply to his remarks.

  ‘You cannot but allow,’ said the Eternal, ‘that on this occasion I have very happily combined my All-Power with my All-Goodness.’

  Mr Know-All

  I WAS PREPARED to dislike Max Kelada even before I knew him. The war had just finished and the passenger traffic in the ocean-going liners was heavy. Accommodation was very hard to get and you had to put up with whatever the agents chose to offer you. You could not hope for a cabin to yourself and I was thankful to be given one in which there were only two berths. But when I was told the name of my companion my heart sank. It suggested closed port-holes and the night air rigidly excluded. It was bad enough to share a cabin for fourteen days with anyone (I was going from San Francisco to Yokohama), but I should have looked upon it with less dismay if my fellow-passenger’s name had been Smith or Brown.

  When I went on board I found Mr Kelada’s luggage already below. I did not like the look of it; there were too many labels on the suitcases, and the wardrobe trunk was too big. He had unpacked his toilet things, and I observed that he was a patron of the excellent Monsieur Coty; for I saw on the washing-stand his scent, his hair-wash, and his brilliantine. Mr Kelada’s brushes, ebony with his monogram in gold, would have been all the better for a scrub. I did not at all like Mr Kelada. I made my way into the smoking-room. I called for a pack of cards and began to play patience. I had scarcely started before a man came up to me and asked me if he was right in thinking my name was so-and-so.

  ‘I am Mr Kelada,’ he added, with a smile that showed a row of flashing teeth, and sat down.

  ‘Oh, yes, we’re sharing a cabin, I think.’

  ‘Bit of luck, I call it. You never know who you’re going to be put in with. I was jolly glad when I heard you were English. I’m all for us English sticking together when we’re abroad, if you understand what I mean.’

  I blinked.

  ‘Are you English?’ I asked, perhaps tactlessly.

  ‘Rather. You don’t think I look an American, do you? British to the backbone, that’s what I am.’

  To prove it, Mr Kelada took out of his pocket a passport and airily waved it under my nose.

  King George has many strange subjects. Mr Kelada was short and of a sturdy build, clean-shaven and dark-skinned, with a fleshy, hooked nose and very large, lustrous and liquid eyes. His long black hair was sleek and curly. He spoke with a fluency in which there was nothing English and his gestures were exuberant. I felt pretty sure that a closer inspection of that British passport would have betrayed the fact that Mr Kelada was born under a bluer sky than is generally seen in England.

  ‘What will you have?’ he asked me.

  I looked at him doubtfully. Prohibition was in force and to all appearances the ship was bone-dry. When I am not thirsty I do not know which I dislike more, ginger-ale or lemon-squash. But Mr Kelada flashed an oriental smile at me.

  ‘Whisky and soda or a dry Martini, you have only to say the word.’

  From each of his hip-pockets he fished a flask and laid them on the table before me. I chose the Martini, and calling the steward he ordered a tumbler of ice and a couple of glasses.

  ‘A very good cocktail,’ I said.

  ‘Well, there are plenty more where that came from, and if you’ve got any friends on board, you tell them you’ve got a pal who’s got all the liquor in the world.’

  Mr Kelada was chatty. He talked of New York and of San Francisco. He discussed plays, pictures, and politics. He was patriotic. The Union Jack is an impressive piece of drapery, but when it is flourished by a gentleman from Alexandria or Beirut, I cannot but feel that it loses somewhat in dignity. Mr Kelada was familiar. I do not wish to put on airs, but I cannot help feeling that it is seemly in a total stranger to put mister before my name when he addresses me. Mr Kelada, doubtless to set me at my ease, used no such formality. I did not like Mr Kelada. I had put aside the cards when he sat down, but now, thinking that for this first occasion our conversation had lasted long enough, I went on with my game.

  ‘The three on the four,’ said Mr Kelada.

  There is nothing more exasperating when you are playing patience than to be told where to put the card you have turned up before you have had a chance to look for yourself.

  ‘It’s coming out, it’s coming out,’ he cried. ‘The ten on the knave.’

  With rage and hatred in my heart I finished. Then he seized the pack.

  ‘Do you like card tricks?’

  ‘No, I hate card tricks,’ I answered.

  ‘Well, I’ll just show you this one.’

  He showed me three. Then I said I would go down to the dining-room and get my seat at table.

  ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’ve already taken a seat for you. I thought that as we were in the same state-room we might just as well sit at the same table.’

  I did not like Mr Kelada.

  I not only shared a cabin with him and ate three meals a day at the same table, but I could not walk round the deck without his joining me. It was impossible to snub him. It never occurred to him that he was not wanted. He was certain that you were as glad to see him as he was to see you. In your own house you might have kicked him downstairs and slammed the door in his face without the suspicion dawning on him that he was not a welcome visitor. He was a good mixer, and in three days knew everyone on board. He ran everything. He managed the sweeps, conducted the auctions, collected money for prizes at the sports, got up quoit and golf matches, organized the concert, and arranged the fancy-dress ball. He was everywhere and always. He was certainly the best-hated man in the ship. We called him Mr Know-All, even to his face. He took it as a compliment. But it was at meal times that he was most intolerable. For the better part of an hour then he had us at his mercy. He was hearty, jovial, loquacious and argumentative. He knew everything better than anybody else, and it was an affront to his overweening vanity that you should disagree with him. He would not drop a subject, however unimportant, till he had brought you round to his way of thinking. The possibility that he could be mistaken never occurred to him. He was the chap who knew. We sat at the doctor’s table. Mr Kelada would certainly have had it all his own way, for the doctor was lazy and I was frigidly indifferent, except for a man called Ramsay who sat there also. He was as dogmatic as Mr Kelada and resented bitterly the Levantine’s cocksureness. The discussions they had were acrimonious and interminable.

  Ramsay was in the American Consular Service, and was stationed at Kobe. He was a great heavy fellow from the Middle West, with loose fat under a tight skin, and he bulged out of his ready-made clothes. He was on his way back t
o resume his post, having been on a flying visit to New York to fetch his wife, who had been spending a year at home. Mrs Ramsay was a very pretty little thing, with pleasant manners and a sense of humour. The Consular Service is ill paid, and she was dressed always very simply; but she knew how to wear her clothes. She achieved an effect of quiet distinction. I should not have paid any particular attention to her but that she possessed a quality that may be common enough in women, but nowadays is not obvious in their demeanour. You could not look at her without being struck by her modesty. It shone in her like a flower on a coat.

  One evening at dinner the conversation by chance drifted to the subject of pearls. There had been in the papers a good deal of talk about the culture pearls which the cunning Japanese were making, and the doctor remarked that they must inevitably diminish the value of real ones. They were very good already; they would soon be perfect. Mr Kelada, as was his habit, rushed the new topic. He told us all that was to be known about pearls. I do not believe Ramsay knew anything about them at all, but he could not resist the opportunity to have a fling at the Levantine, and in five minutes we were in the middle of a heated argument. I had seen Mr Kelada vehement and voluble before, but never so voluble and vehement as now. At last something that Ramsay said stung him, for he thumped the table and shouted:

  ‘Well, I ought to know what I am talking about. I’m going to Japan just to look into this Japanese pearl business. I’m in the trade and there’s not a man in it who won’t tell you that what I say about pearls goes. I know all the best pearls in the world, and what I don’t know about pearls isn’t worth knowing.’

  Here was news for us, for Mr Kelada, with all his loquacity, had never told anyone what his business was. We only knew vaguely that he was going to Japan on some commercial errand. He looked round the table triumphantly.

  ‘They’ll never be able to get a culture pearl that an expert like me can’t tell with half an eye.’ He pointed to a chain that Mrs Ramsay wore. ‘You take my word for it, Mrs Ramsay, that chain you’re wearing will never be worth a cent less than it is now.’

  Mrs Ramsay in her modest way flushed a little and slipped the chain inside her dress. Ramsay leaned forward. He gave us all a look and a smile flickered in his eyes.

  ‘That’s a pretty chain of Mrs Ramsay’s, isn’t it?’

  ‘I noticed it at once,’ answered Mr Kelada. ‘Gee, I said to myself, those are pearls all right.’

  ‘I didn’t buy it myself, of course. I’d be interested to know how much you think it cost.’

  ‘Oh, in the trade somewhere round fifteen thousand dollars. But if it was bought on Fifth Avenue I shouldn’t be surprised to hear that anything up to thirty thousand was paid for it.’

  Ramsay smiled grimly.

  ‘You’ll be surprised to hear that Mrs Ramsay bought that string at a department store the day before we left New York, for eighteen dollars.’

  Mr Kelada flushed.

  ‘Rot. It’s not only real, but it’s as fine a string for its size as I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Will you bet on it? I’ll bet you a hundred dollars it’s imitation.’

  ‘Done.’

  ‘Oh, Elmer, you can’t bet on a certainty,’ said Mrs Ramsay.

  She had a little smile on her lips and her tone was gently deprecating.

  ‘Can’t I? If I get a chance of easy money like that I should be all sorts of a fool not to take it.’

  ‘But how can it be proved?’ she continued. ‘It’s only my word against Mr Kelada’s.’

  ‘Let me look at the chain, and if it’s imitation I’ll tell you quickly enough. I can afford to lose a hundred dollars,’ said Mr Kelada.

  ‘Take it off, dear. Let the gentleman look at it as much as he wants.’

  Mrs Ramsay hesitated a moment. She put her hands to the clasp.

  ‘I can’t undo it,’ she said. ‘Mr Kelada will just have to take my word for it.’

  I had a sudden suspicion that something unfortunate was about to occur, but I could think of nothing to say.

  Ramsay jumped up.

  ‘I’ll undo it.’

  He handed the chain to Mr Kelada. The Levantine took a magnifying glass from his pocket and closely examined it. A smile of triumph spread over his smooth and swarthy face. He handed back the chain. He was about to speak. Suddenly he caught sight of Mrs Ramsay’s face. It was so white that she looked as though she were about to faint. She was staring at him with wide and terrified eyes. They held a desperate appeal; it was so clear that I wondered why her husband did not see it.

  Mr Kelada stopped with his mouth open. He flushed deeply. You could almost see the effort he was making over himself.

  ‘I was mistaken,’ he said. ‘It’s a very good imitation, but of course as soon as I looked through my glass I saw that it wasn’t real. I think eighteen dollars is just about as much as the damned thing’s worth.’

  He took out his pocket-book and from it a hundred-dollar note. He handed it to Ramsay without a word.

  ‘Perhaps that’ll teach you not to be so cocksure another time, my young friend,’ said Ramsay as he took the note.

  I noticed that Mr Kelada’s hands were trembling.

  The story spread over the ship as stories do, and he had to put up with a good deal of chaff that evening. It was a fine joke that Mr Know-All had been caught out. But Mrs Ramsay retired to her state-room with a headache.

  Next morning I got up and began to shave. Mr Kelada lay on his bed smoking a cigarette. Suddenly there was a small scraping sound and I saw a letter pushed under the door. I opened the door and looked out. There was nobody there. I picked up the letter and saw that it was addressed to Max Kelada. The name was written in block letters. I handed it to him.

  ‘Who’s this from?’ He opened it. ‘Oh!’

  He took out of the envelope, not a letter, but a hundred-dollar note. He looked at me and again he reddened. He tore the envelope into little bits and gave them to me.

  ‘Do you mind just throwing them out of the port-hole?’

  I did as he asked, and then I looked at him with a smile.

  ‘No one likes being made to look a perfect damned fool,’ he said.

  ‘Were the pearls real?’

  ‘If I had a pretty little wife I shouldn’t let her spend a year in New York while I stayed at Kobe,’ said he.

  At that moment I did not entirely dislike Mr Kelada. He reached out for his pocket-book and carefully put in it the hundred-dollar note.

  The happy man

  IT IS A dangerous thing to order the lives of others and I have often wondered at the self-confidence of politicians, reformers and suchlike who are prepared to force upon their fellows measures that must alter their manners, habits, and points of view. I have always hesitated to give advice, for how can one advise another how to act unless one knows that other as well as one knows oneself? Heaven knows, I know little enough of myself: I know nothing of others. We can only guess at the thoughts and emotions of our neighbours. Each one of us is a prisoner in a solitary tower and he communicates with the other prisoners, who form mankind, by conventional signs that have not quite the same meaning for them as for himself. And life, unfortunately, is something that you can lead but once; mistakes are often irreparable, and who am I that I should tell this one and that how he should lead it? Life is a difficult business and I have found it hard enough to make my own a complete and rounded thing; I have not been tempted to teach my neighbour what he should do with his. But there are men who flounder at the journey’s start, the way before them is confused and hazardous, and on occasion, however unwillingly, I have been forced to point the finger of fate. Sometimes men have said to me, what shall I do with my life? and I have seen myself for a moment wrapped in the dark cloak of Destiny.

  Once I know that I advised well.

  I was a young man and I lived in a modest apartment in London near Victoria Station. Late one afternoon, when I was beginning to think that I had worked enough for that day, I heard a ri
ng at the bell. I opened the door to a total stranger. He asked me my name; I told him. He asked if he might come in.

  ‘Certainly.’

  I led him into my sitting-room and begged him to sit down. He seemed a trifle embarrassed. I offered him a cigarette and he had some difficulty in lighting it without letting go of his hat. When he had satisfactorily achieved this feat I asked him if I should not put it on a chair for him. He quickly did this and while doing it dropped his umbrella.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind my coming to see you like this,’ he said. ‘My name is Stephens and I am a doctor. You’re in the medical, I believe?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t practise.’

  ‘No, I know. I’ve just read a book of yours about Spain and I wanted to ask you about it.’

  ‘It’s not a very good book, I’m afraid.’