THE ROMANCERS
It was autumn in London, that blessed season between the harshness ofwinter and the insincerities of summer; a trustful season when one buysbulbs and sees to the registration of one’s vote, believing perpetuallyin spring and a change of Government.
Morton Crosby sat on a bench in a secluded corner of Hyde Park, lazilyenjoying a cigarette and watching the slow grazing promenade of a pair ofsnow-geese, the male looking rather like an albino edition of therusset-hued female. Out of the corner of his eye Crosby also noted withsome interest the hesitating hoverings of a human figure, which hadpassed and repassed his seat two or three times at shortening intervals,like a wary crow about to alight near some possibly edible morsel.Inevitably the figure came to an anchorage on the bench, within easytalking distance of its original occupant. The uncared-for clothes, theaggressive, grizzled beard, and the furtive, evasive eye of the new-comerbespoke the professional cadger, the man who would undergo hours ofhumiliating tale-spinning and rebuff rather than adventure on half aday’s decent work.
For a while the new-comer fixed his eyes straight in front of him in astrenuous, unseeing gaze; then his voice broke out with the insinuatinginflection of one who has a story to retail well worth any loiterer’swhile to listen to.
“It’s a strange world,” he said.
As the statement met with no response he altered it to the form of aquestion.
“I daresay you’ve found it to be a strange world, mister?”
“As far as I am concerned,” said Crosby, “the strangeness has worn off inthe course of thirty-six years.”
“Ah,” said the greybeard, “I could tell you things that you’d hardlybelieve. Marvellous things that have really happened to me.”
“Nowadays there is no demand for marvellous things that have reallyhappened,” said Crosby discouragingly; “the professional writers offiction turn these things out so much better. For instance, myneighbours tell me wonderful, incredible things that their Aberdeens andchows and borzois have done; I never listen to them. On the other hand,I have read ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ three times.”
The greybeard moved uneasily in his seat; then he opened up new country.
“I take it that you are a professing Christian,” he observed.
“I am a prominent and I think I may say an influential member of theMussulman community of Eastern Persia,” said Crosby, making an excursionhimself into the realms of fiction.
The greybeard was obviously disconcerted at this new check tointroductory conversation, but the defeat was only momentary.
“Persia. I should never have taken you for a Persian,” he remarked, witha somewhat aggrieved air.
“I am not,” said Crosby; “my father was an Afghan.”
“An Afghan!” said the other, smitten into bewildered silence for amoment. Then he recovered himself and renewed his attack.
“Afghanistan. Ah! We’ve had some wars with that country; now, Idaresay, instead of fighting it we might have learned something from it.A very wealthy country, I believe. No real poverty there.”
He raised his voice on the word “poverty” with a suggestion of intensefeeling. Crosby saw the opening and avoided it.
“It possesses, nevertheless, a number of highly talented and ingeniousbeggars,” he said; “if I had not spoken so disparagingly of marvellousthings that have really happened I would tell you the story of Ibrahimand the eleven camel-loads of blotting-paper. Also I have forgottenexactly how it ended.”
“My own life-story is a curious one,” said the stranger, apparentlystifling all desire to hear the history of Ibrahim; “I was not always asyou see me now.”
“We are supposed to undergo complete change in the course of every sevenyears,” said Crosby, as an explanation of the foregoing announcement.
“I mean I was not always in such distressing circumstances as I am atpresent,” pursued the stranger doggedly.
“That sounds rather rude,” said Crosby stiffly, “considering that you areat present talking to a man reputed to be one of the most giftedconversationalists of the Afghan border.”
“I don’t mean in that way,” said the greybeard hastily; “I’ve been verymuch interested in your conversation. I was alluding to my unfortunatefinancial situation. You mayn’t hardly believe it, but at the presentmoment I am absolutely without a farthing. Don’t see any prospect ofgetting any money, either, for the next few days. I don’t suppose you’veever found yourself in such a position,” he added.
“In the town of Yom,” said Crosby, “which is in Southern Afghanistan, andwhich also happens to be my birthplace, there was a Chinese philosopherwho used to say that one of the three chiefest human blessings was to beabsolutely without money. I forget what the other two were.”
“Ah, I daresay,” said the stranger, in a tone that betrayed no enthusiasmfor the philosopher’s memory; “and did he practise what he preached?That’s the test.”
“He lived happily with very little money or resources,” said Crosby.
“Then I expect he had friends who would help him liberally whenever hewas in difficulties, such as I am in at present.”
“In Yom,” said Crosby, “it is not necessary to have friends in order toobtain help. Any citizen of Yom would help a stranger as a matter ofcourse.”
The greybeard was now genuinely interested.
The conversation had at last taken a favourable turn.
“If someone, like me, for instance, who was in undeserved difficulties,asked a citizen of that town you speak of for a small loan to tide over afew days’ impecuniosity—five shillings, or perhaps a rather largersum—would it be given to him as a matter of course?”
“There would be a certain preliminary,” said Crosby; “one would take himto a wine-shop and treat him to a measure of wine, and then, after alittle high-flown conversation, one would put the desired sum in his handand wish him good-day. It is a roundabout way of performing a simpletransaction, but in the East all ways are roundabout.”
The listener’s eyes were glittering.
“Ah,” he exclaimed, with a thin sneer ringing meaningly through hiswords, “I suppose you’ve given up all those generous customs since youleft your town. Don’t practise them now, I expect.”
“No one who has lived in Yom,” said Crosby fervently, “and remembers itsgreen hills covered with apricot and almond trees, and the cold waterthat rushes down like a caress from the upland snows and dashes under thelittle wooden bridges, no one who remembers these things and treasuresthe memory of them would ever give up a single one of its unwritten lawsand customs. To me they are as binding as though I still lived in thathallowed home of my youth.”
“Then if I was to ask you for a small loan—” began the greybeardfawningly, edging nearer on the seat and hurriedly wondering how large hemight safely make his request, “if I was to ask you for, say—”
“At any other time, certainly,” said Crosby; “in the months of Novemberand December, however, it is absolutely forbidden for anyone of our raceto give or receive loans or gifts; in fact, one does not willingly speakof them. It is considered unlucky. We will therefore close thisdiscussion.”
“But it is still October!” exclaimed the adventurer with an eager, angrywhine, as Crosby rose from his seat; “wants eight days to the end of themonth!”
“The Afghan November began yesterday,” said Crosby severely, and inanother moment he was striding across the Park, leaving his recentcompanion scowling and muttering furiously on the seat.
“I don’t believe a word of his story,” he chattered to himself; “pack ofnasty lies from beginning to end. Wish I’d told him so to his face.Calling himself an Afghan!”
The snorts and snarls that escaped from him for the next quarter of anhour went far to support the truth of the old saying that two of a tradenever agree.