aIt was, literally, an uprooting,a said the ghost. aBut I took it philosophically. The trouble with a ghostas situation, you see, is the sameness of it. After two hundred and fifty years I was beginning to feel housebound, and I thought a new country, new people to frighten, new people to boast about me, would be an adventure. So I didnat mind the move to Toronto; the journey by airline freight wasnat bad, in spite of the delays by strikes. But when I arrived at last, all sorts of terrible things began to happen.a aClimate unfavourable, I suppose?a said I, sympathetically.
aNot that, so much as the structural changes,a said the ghost. aOur splendid old manorhouse kitchen was thought too big for a Canadian dwelling. To begin, it was a good hundred and forty feet from the dining-room, and there was a flight of stone stairs on the way. You should have heard what the real-estate people had to say about that! And it had a flagstone floor, which was hard and cold to Canadian feet. Further, our house was a proper gentlemanas residence, and without a butler and a footman and six maids and a cook and a scullion nothing more ambitious than sandwiches could be managed. So the real estate people decided that an entirely new kitchen should be built, and the old kitchen should become something called a rumpus room, where the children of the family could be at a suitable distance from their elders. I gather that arumpusa is the modern word for what in my day was called hullabaloo.
aTo accommodate the new kitchen, the contractor bought in England and transferred to Don Mills an object that would never be seen attached to a respectable manor. It was an oast-house. You know what an oast-house is?a I didnat.
aItas a kiln for drying hops, a great tower-like building with a pointed roof. An unseemly object. But they stuck it to the side of the manor, right by the dining-room, and put a modern kitchen in it.
aA modern kitchen is no place for a ghost. Crackling with electric current, cold things, hot things, and cramped so that one miserable servant can do the work of five. Where is the ingle-nook, where visiting grooms and coachmen can dry themselves in bad weather? Where is the cheerful fire, and the spit, the dogs, the cat and her kittens, the hens running in and out, the ducks peeping in at the door, and, in winter, the shadowy corners for haunting? But the worst thing of all was that the builders and the contractor couldnat get the name right, and they called the horrid thing an oaf-house. Who wants to haunt an oaf-house, I ask you? A Poor Relation I may have been, but an oafa"never!
aNevertheless, I determined to make the best of it. All immigrants have a hard time in a new country, for a few hundred years. I decided to divide my time between the oaf-house, on the housekeeperas day off, and the rumpus room when the children werenat doing whatever children do in a rumpus room, which is something I never found out.
aBecause, you see, the house didnat sell. Even with all the tinkering and destruction and costly misery and modern convenience it somehow failed to catch on. So the people who were trying to sell it hit on a great idea; they would let the public visit it.
aThat was the end, for me. We phantoms have our feelings, and I never undertook to haunt wholesale, so to speak. Servants I will frightena"yes, gladly. Gentlefolk of my own kindred I will provide with the thrill of a true family phantom, though I have always drawn the line at manifesting myself to more than two at a timea"usually a man and his wife or better still, somebody who ought to be his wife. But haunt I must. It is part of my condition of existence, you see. Unless I make an appearance at least once a year, I am in serious trouble witha"well, never you mind who. But appearing to people who have paid admission on behalf of a charitya"no, no, the thing is not to be thought of.a aI suppose a great many people visited the house?a said I. I knew what had happened, but I wanted to hear his version of it.
aThey came by scores and hundreds,a said he. aAnd what they did to our family manor beggars description, as Old Shakespeare says. They invited Toronto decorators to refurbish it, a room to each decorator, and the decorators themselves made my eyes start out of my head. They were men of an affected elegancea"what in my day might have been called exquisites or beaux, except that these were not gentlemena"they worked for their living, and what they sold was Taste. As if anyone of any consequence ever had taste, or wanted any! They filled our comfortable old manor with spindly walnut and mahogany that might have done well enough in a fashionable bawdy-house in London, but was not to be compared with our comfortable old oak and chairs stuffed with the wool of our own sheep. They brought in pictures of people n.o.body had ever heard of, and declared they were by Sir Peter Lely and later masters. They stuck up curtains and threw down carpets of horrid gaudy colours, as if brown were not the only colour a lady of good family would endure in her rooms. But there was worse to come, much worse.
aThey did up some of the rooms in what they called acontemporary tastea and that was Chaos and Old Night, I a.s.sure you. They papered the floors, and stuck fur to the walls, and hung pictures by madmen, and set out furniture in which even I, as a weightless spectre, could not have sat with any comfort. And when all this was done the procession of viewers appeared. They were the friends of the Womenas Committees of the charities that were to be benefited by this dreadful rape of my dear old manor, and they tramped everywhere and poked into everything.
aThey seemed to have no idea of the comforts of an eighteenth-century house, and so they admired all the po-boxes in the bedrooms and said what charming little bedside tables they were, and they admired the silver chamber-pot my cousin had kept in the dining-room sideboard, for his convenience after dinner, and to my shame it was kept in full sight, filled with flowers. They loved all the modern rooms because they reminded them of their own homes. Best of all they liked the new kitchen, and said how wonderful it was that an inconvenient old manor could be so elegantly adapted for really civilized living. There were blue-haired ladies who came in aid of the Art Gallery and there were ladies with hair of improbable shades who came in aid of the Ballet, and noisy stout ladies who were patrons of Opera, and there were garden ladies who came to see the dreadful tropical plants that the decorators called agrowiesa which were stuck up everywherea"as if garden rubbish didnat belong outside a respectable gentlemanas house.a aAnd you couldnat bear it?a said I, sympathetically.
aI could bear everything,a said he, and I swear that if ever a ghost had tears in his eyes, it was at that moment. aEverything, that is, except the air-conditioning. Would you believe that they filled the fine old walls with metal guts that conveyed jets of air that stank of mice to every part of that dear old placea"jets that squirted out where one least expected, blowing me about like a leaf in a storm and playing merry h.e.l.l with my ectoplasm until I developed the worst case of phantom arthritis that has ever been seen at any of our Halloweaen meetings. That was the finish. That settled the matter forever. I had to leave or I should have become a mere knotted bundle of malice, and would probably have dwindled into a Poltergeist of the lowest cla.s.s. It was leave my home or lose countenance irreparably in the phantom world.
aSo will you take me in? You are a modern foundation, I know, but your College has some of what I regard as the comforts of home. Draughts, mostly; I miss normal, healthy draughts more than you can imagine.a I pondered, and that is always fatal, for when I ponder my resolution leaks away. He was a humble creature, as ghosts go, but his story had gone to my heart. Stilla"where on earth was I to put him?
aI could make myself useful,a he said, wistfully. aI have heard that a trade flourishes on this continenta"that of a Ghost Writer, and I know a lot of writing is done here. Yourself, for instance. I know you write romances, and though I despise romances perhaps, in time, I could grind out a three-volume novel about an unfortunate young man who wanted to be a College fellow, and then wanted to take holy orders, but who was slain untimely in an affair of honour with an aristocratic adversary. I promise to put in lots of theology. You could sign it, of course.a aNo,a I said firmly, athat wouldnat do at all.a He looked very forlorn, and he seemed to grow more transparent as grief overcame him. aCould I copy ma.n.u.scripts?a he pleaded.
I had a flash of illumination! Our Xerox machine in the College is terribly inadequate, and a copyist would be a great benefit to usa"especially a copyist who was cheap.
But where was I to put him? I cudgelled my brains and thena"another flasha"I had the answer.
Years ago, when this College building was completed, the architect, Mr. Thorn, presented me with a set of plans. I counted the rooms for occupation by Junior Fellowsa"and I paused. Then I went through the College with the Bursar and we counted, and counted again, and however carefully we counted there were three rooms in the plan which could not be found in the building. I made enquiry of Mr. Thorn. aYes,a he said, in the abstracted manner which is characteristic of architects, awhen I had made all the alterations the founders called for, three rooms somehow got mislaid. Walls were moved, and jogs and corners were eliminated, and somehow or other three rooms disappeared. They are there, in a way, and yet in another way they arenat there.a Without a word, I led the ghost up to the top of staircase number three, until we confronted a blank wall. aHere is your room,a said I; aI donat pretend that I can see it myself, but perhaps you can.a It was a risk on my part, and it worked. The ghost vanished through the wall, but I could hear his voice, and for the first time since we met, its tone was cheerful.
aOf course,a he cried; athe very thing Iave always wanted. Commodious, a charming view of the quad, several strong draughts, and no modern conveniences whatever. Bless you, sir, bless you.a I was rid of him, for the moment. I made a chalk mark on the wall where his door seemed to be. In a day or two I would hunt him up and instruct him in his new duties as an unseen and unrequited Xerox.
As I walked back through the quad with a light heart I suddenly sawa"my heart leapt into my moutha"I suddenly saw a figure, familiar to me from a score of nineteenth century photographs, standing near the gate, looking about him with an air of deep disapproval. That barrel-shaped body in the impeccable frock coat; that tall silk hat of surpa.s.sing splendour. It must be he! I was to be rewarded for my good deed! I rushed forward, my hand outstretched.
aDr. Ibsen!a I cried; ayou have come at last. Do stay a while! Do come inside! Have a gla.s.s of acquavit! Let us have a really splendid talk about your work! And will you honour me by inscribing my copy of your great drama, Ghosts?a Ibsena"for indeed it was hea"bent upon me a gaze that was like being transfixed by two little knives. His thin lips parted, and a single word escaped the prison-house of his formidable countenance.
aTvertimot,a said he, and without another word he vanished through the bars of our gate.
Tvertimot! Tvertimota"that supremely characteristic utterance had been the last word he spoke on his deathbed! I rushed into my study, dragged down my great Dictionary of the Norwegian Tongue and looked it up with trembling hands.
aTvertimota, said the entry: aQuite the contrary, or colloquially, Not on your Nelliea.
Well, I reflected, not a bad year for ghosts after all. We had acquired an additional Xerox, and Ibsen had dropped in for a sneer.
Einstein and the Little Lord
I know you will understand when I say it is a great source of satisfaction to me that this College is regularly and extensively haunted. Every part of our great University strives for distinction of one kind or another, but it is everywhere admitted that in the regularity and variety of our ghostly visitations Ma.s.sey College stands alone. Year after year our ghosts never fail us, and they are shades of unquestionable intellectual distinction, the Cream of the Ectoplasm; in this College, so often accused of elitism, our ghosts at least may truly be called the elite of Who Was Who. It is hard not to fall prey to sinful pride when I think of them.
Early in January, every year, I begin wondering: Who will it be? Ghosts of world-wide renown think it worth their while to drop in on us for an hour or two, which, in the course of a busy afterlife, is uncommonly civil of them. As the custom has arisen of celebrating centenaries and anniversaries of all sorts, and lists of these events are published at the beginning of each year, I look down these columns with an interest that comes close to gloating, wondering who our next unearthly visitant will be. Last January there was one prize I coveted above all. This year marks the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Albert Einstein.
I see in your faces wonder, tempered with disdain. What does he think he would have to say to Einstein? That is the question I read in your eyes. Ah, but you see, my experience with ghosts has taught me that it is unnecessary to talk to them; their concern is to talk to you. They have no time for chit-chat. It is true I had some misgiving. If Einstein were to entrust me with post-mortem reflections on the Michelson-Morley experiments, or use me as a means of telling the world a few new things about the wavelength of light emitted by atoms, I should have to be careful not to make any mistakes in taking dictation. But on the whole I was confident. Only let Einstein come: I would find a way of coping with him.
But he didnat come. I waited; I waited. By the beginning of December I began to grow anxious. Had ridiculous pride led me into absurd expectation? Had the other world decided to humble me, to condemn the College to a ghostless year? Of course, I thought, it is not to me, but to the College, that the mighty spectres come, and the College has in no way offended. So I waited as well as I could for one long December week, and just a week ago tonight my vigil was rewarded. Einstein came.
He came unexpectedly, as they always do. It was the night of our Christmas Dance, and as some of you know, that is an affair that not merely raises the roof but rouses the dead. I had stepped out into the quadrangle, to rest my ears; nevertheless the music was still very loud, and I was not surprised to hear a quiet, slightly foreign voice say from behind me, aNot quite my sort of thing.a I turned and there he was, impossible to mistake. The stout, unremarkable figure, the lamentable clothes, and the large, splendid, melancholy head. He was smoking a pipe, slowly as a good pipe-smoker does, emitting tiny puffs of fragrance with audible poppings of the lips.
aYou have come!a I said.
aOh, I always meant to come,a said he, abut I left you till near the end of my centennial year, when I knew I should be tired. Because of your rules, you know.a What rules, I wondered? But not for long. He meant our rules about College guests. Our unbreakable rule is that no guest may be asked for a favour, and that any informal opinions expressed by a guest must be regarded as confidential. Einstein had come to us to escape the publicity that pursues an eminent ghost.
He wanted a rest, and I knew what sort of rest he had in mind. Underneath his arm was a violin. He jerked his head toward the sound of music from the dance, and in a friendly fashion he said, aCome on; we can do better than that.a Quite how I followed him I do not remember but in no time I was in the large room in the bas.e.m.e.nt of my house, where the piano lives. I say it lives there, because I dare not say I keep it there. I am somewhat in awe of it. You see, I have played the piano all my life, without ever having gained any proficiency whatever. Untold gold was spent on my musical education, but I remain a hopeless fumbler; I am perhaps the only man in musical history to play the piano with a stammer. Nevertheless, I play. Almost every day I approach the piano in my bas.e.m.e.nt and endure its Teutonic sneers as I tinkle out the kind of music I like, which I confess is chiefly piano arrangements of music meant for other instruments, and even for the human voice.
Einstein gestured me toward the piano, and began to tune his violin. It was obvious that his pitch was perfect. I was horrified.
aDo you mean you want me to accompany you?a I said, weak with fear.
aNo, no, we play together,a he said, and tucked the fiddle under his chin.
My blood ran cold. In all the vast repertoire of music in which the violin and piano can mingle there is only one piece that I would dare attempt. It is a Humoresque by Dvoraka"the Number 7 in G flat. You know it. Popular musical taste has accorded words to it, words selected from a well-known railway notice: Pa.s.sengers will please refrain
From flushing toilets when the train
Is standing in the station:
I love you.
But when Einstein speaks, who am I to disobey? So I sat at the piano, and to my astonishment I saw, on the music desk before my eyes, the score of Bachas Six Sonatas for Clavier and Violin. Einstein made a slight dip with his bow, as a signal, my hands flew to the keyboard, and there followed such a flood of exquisite music as had never come out of that piano in its existence. And it was I who was making this glorious sound! Einstein was a pretty good violinista"extremely good for a physicista"but I was a musical marvel. Little by little I took possession of this totally unaccustomed skill. Pride surged through me. I began to refine upon my playing, and to do things properly which Glenn Gould would probably have foozled. I was like a man transformed, endowed with the power to play music as I had imagined it.
Then it happened. There was a sudden discord in the ba.s.s end of the piano, and I saw that a gigantic dog had brought its great head down on the keyboard with a crash. Einstein stopped; I stopped; the dog regarded us both with eyes rimmed by nasty, wet red flesh.
aIam sorry if Dougal has interrupted your music,a said a high, sweet, clear voice. aBut I really must speak to Professor Einstein without delay.a The speaker was the most beautiful boy I have ever seen in my life. His graceful childish figure was dressed in a black velvet suit and close-fitting knee-breeches from which emerged legs, clothed in black silk stockings, that Marlene Dietrich might have envied. The velvet suit had a white collar of exquisite lace, and about the handsome, manly little face cl.u.s.tered lovelocks of long fair hair falling in a profusion of curls.
You know who it was, of course. And I, from recollections of my childhood reading of the novel of which he was the hero, was able to greet him with a cry which surely fell in familiar and welcome cadence on his ears.
aG.o.d bless your lordship! G.o.d bless your pretty face! Good luck and happiness to your lordship! Welcome to you!a The child bowed in response to my greeting.
It was Little Lord Fauntleroy.
Modern children do not seem to know his name, or the book by Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett in which his story is told. But surely this is a temporary lapse of fame; his romance is undying, a superb realization of what Dr. Jung of Zurich has named the Archetype of the Miraculous Child.
Most of you are familiar with him, though there may be one or two among you, under thirty, to whom he is a stranger. But millions of readers, old and young, have thrilled to the tale of little Cedric Errol, born in New York of an American mothera"whom he never addressed or referred to except as aDearesta, because that is what his English father, who had died so young, had always called her. Cedric considered himself to be an American, and indeed he exhibited all the American characteristics, total candour, boundless self-confidence, naturally fine manners, and a democratic spirit almost too zealous to be wholly believable. But certainly in Cedric there was nothing affected about this democracy; his dearest friends were Mr. Hobbs, the groceryman, d.i.c.k the shoeshine boy, and the poor old woman who sold apples at the street-corner; he did good to many others, among the poor and needy, for whom his tender little heart was always grieved. Judge then of the readeras astonishment when he discovers that this typical little American is, because of the death of a number of relatives on his fatheras side, the heir of the great Earl of Dorincourt, and that his true name is Lord Fauntleroy.
How Cedric softens the hard heart of his grandfather, the Earl (a typical English n.o.bleman, proud, domineering, with blood so blue you could use it for ink, but nonetheless a splendid creature and exceedingly rich) and how Cedric makes all his grandfatheras tenants happy, and how Cedric persuades his haughty grandfather to accept Dearest, who, though an American, is nevertheless a lady, and how Cedric gets Mr. Hobbs the groceryman and d.i.c.k the shoeshine boy to England, and settles them close to Dorincourt Castle, so that he can go on being democratic at thema"all of this is familiar to you. Familiar also are the drawings done for the book by Reginald B. Birch, which made the appearance of all the characters, but especially the ringleted, velvet-suited little lord, familiar to millions of infatuated readers from 1886 at least until 1925.
And there he stood, in my music room, confronting Professor Einstein and myself. Not only Fauntleroy, but the huge, drooling, red-eyed mastiff Dougal, his Grandfatheras pet and the little lordas inseparable companion.
I wondered what he had come for, so, with a directness which I was sure such a democratic child would appreciate, I put the question.
aWhat have you come for, malord?a said I.
He laughed. It was the characteristic laugh of an innocent child, like silver bells, and it set up an answering echo in the piano.
aI want to ask a favour of Professor Einstein,a he said.
aCertainly not,a said I; ano guest of Ma.s.sey College may be asked for favours.a aOh pleasea"oh pretty-please and sugar-plums,a said Lord Fauntleroy, winsomely. aSurely you havenat forgotten that this is the Year of the Child?a I had forgotten. In spite of all the newspaper hullabaloo, and appeals for this, that and the other thing to increase the influence of children, I had forgotten. Certainly I had not expected the Year of the Child to have anything to do with our College Ghost.
aThe Year of the Child is more important than rules,a said Fauntleroy. aOh, youad probably never guess how important for the peace of the world. You know, donat you, that some dear, kind people are trying to establish a Childrenasa Bill of Rights?a I admitted that I had heard something of the sort. Einstein didnat bother to answer; he was regarding Little Lord Fauntleroy with big, sad eyes, the expression of which I could read. It was an expression of great weariness, mingled with a n.o.ble compa.s.sion. It was also the expression of an influential person confronted with a remorseless beggar.
aThat is why I have come for advice to Professor Einstein, the author of Why War?a said the beautiful boy. aThe best of us want a sensible Bill of Rights. You know the sort of thing: n.o.body is to beat children more than is good for them, and savage people are not to eat children except in case of real necessity, and children are to be loved except when they are unlovable, and children are to be seen and not heard except for exceptional children like me, and children are to be taught sensibly by sensible people, and children are to have pocket-money but not enough to make it possible for them to get into serious trouble. And in return children undertake to be reasonable and pretend to be innocent and believe in Santa Claus and babies being brought by the doctor and all that c.r.a.pa"oh, what have I said!a aYou said, aand all that c.r.a.pa,a said I, wishing to be helpful. Little Lord Fauntleroy was hiding his face in his hands, the very picture of shame.
aI know I did,a he said. aHow could I! What would Dearest say if she heard me use such a horrid word! But He makes me do it! Itas His terrible influence. Oh, if I were not the sweetest, most forgiving little soul anybody ever heard of, I could hate Him!a To emphasize the general grief the big dog, Dougal, set up a melancholy howling, and lashed the piano keys with his great tail.
It was here that Professor Einstein intervened. aMy boy,a he said, aif you expect us to understand you, do not begin your story in the middle and wriggle out toward both ends. I recommend the Scientific Method: state your princ.i.p.al thesis, develop it, and work toward a conclusion.a Little Lord Fauntleroy took his hands from his face and looked at the great man with adoration.
aJust what I wanted,a said he; ayou are so wise, Professor Einstein, I knew you could help me. I shall do as you say. Please, may I sit on your knee?a Einstein pondered for a moment, then said, aNo.a My respect for his wisdom rose sharply. aJust stand where you are, and I shall sit down, and you shall tell us both, quietly and clearly, what the trouble is! Now, first of all, where do you come from?a aFrom Paradise,a said the Miraculous Child. aOh, itas not at all the way silly people imagine. Itas really a huge confederation of self-governing Paradises where everybody can enjoy Eternity with the sort of people they like best. There arenat any grown-ups in the Childrenas Paradise, or else it wouldnat be a Paradise for children. And of course the fact that weare all in the Childrenas Paradise makes the other paradises paradisal for the grown-ups.a aQuite true,a said Einstein. aI cannot recall ever having seen, or heard, a child since I entered the Physics Division of the Intellectualsa Paradise.a I was troubled by a doubt. aOne moment,a I said. aIt has always been my understanding that Paradise is for the living who have pa.s.sed into rest. But you, my lord, never lived. Explain yourself.a aOh, you dear old silly-billy,a said Fauntleroy, putting his graceful little hand on my sleeve, as Dougal smeared my trousers with phantom drool. aYou, an author, of a sort, to say such a thing! You know jolly well that I lived more fully and gloriously than the ordinary run of children. I was loved by millions of people who had no children of their own. We children of literature are the aristocracy of the Childrenas Paradise. We are remembered for generations, when the real children who didnat have the luck to live to maturity are forgotten, poor little mites! We set the tone of the place. In a quiet way, we run it! There are the d.i.c.kens Groupa"Little Paul Dombey, and Tiny Tim, and Little Nella"and there are the Outdoors Typesa"Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and Midshipman Easy, and Jackanapes, and Penrod and lots of othersa"and there are the littlest ones like the Bobbsey Twins and Budge and Toddya"and there are the Fairy Tale Ganga"Rose Red and Snow White, and Jack the Giant Killer and all those. You wouldnat believe what a lot there are, and we are all so much more vivid than the flesh-and-blood children that we naturally take the lead. Or we did,a said the boy, his beautiful countenance darkening, auntil He came.a aA rival?a I said.
aNot a rival,a said the boy with what in a lesser child might have been taken for a pout, aa usurper.a aSame thing,a said I. aLetas hear about it.a aEverything in the Childrenas Paradise was paradisal,a said Fauntleroy, aso long as I was the boss. I took care that everybody was happy; I wouldnat tolerate an instantas discord. If any of my agents reported anything to mea"a aAgents?a said Professor Einstein; aSpies, do you mean?a aDonat be horrid,a said Fauntleroy, smiling his reproach. aJust children who were either naturally very sharp, like the Artful Dodger, and Gavroche out of Les Miserables, or else children who were abnormally trustworthy like Casabiancaa"you know, the Boy Who Stood on the Burning Deck. If they saw any trouble brewing they tipped me off, and I dealt with it at once, and if the child didnat see things differently then, Dougal had a little romp with it, and that always worked.a Dougal gave a sudden lurch that almost knocked me off my chair, and I saw what a romp might involve.
aLetas hear about the usurper,a I said.
aYou know how things have been on earth for the past twenty years,a said Fauntleroy. aTurbulence everywhere, among nations, among university students, and even among children. In fact, the modern child has simply been going straight toa"a Here he blushed deeply, and whispered something in Professor Einsteinas ear.
aAnd the usurper came from h.e.l.l?a said Professor Einstein.
aNo, from Toronto,a said Fauntleroy. aHis name is Gold-Tooth Flanagan. He is very proud of his gold tooth. He got it by ripping off Old Age Pensioners in supermarkets until he had enough money to buy it. It was his mark of authority. It is a huge adult-size gold tooth, in the worst possible taste. But of course that sort of life can have but one end: Gold-Tooth was knocked on the head with a bottle in a police raid in Cabbage Town and to his surprise he was sent to the Childrenas Paradise. Of course he wanted to go to the Hooligansa Paradise, but he was too young, so he came to us instead. n.o.bodyas fault but his own; he peaked too soon.a aAnd he tried to take over the Childrenas Paradise?a said I.
aFrom the beginning,a said Fauntleroy. aHe said very offensive things. He started by picking on a literary child from the Third World, whom we have always known as Little Black Sambo; Gold Tooth called him a horrid racist name, and when I rebuked hima"gently, of course, for he was new, and didnat know our waysa"he asked me if I was gay. I said of course I was, and that Dearest had always loved me for being so gay, and he laughed offensively and mimicked me rudely. It wasnat until Holden Caulfield told me what agaya means to minds like Flanaganas that I understood that I had been insulted. Gay, indeed! Me! As if for years I hadnat been on a footing of special intimacy with Little Miss m.u.f.fet!a aDidnat it occur to you to put Dougal on him?a said I.
aI was coming to that, just when the real trouble blew up,a said Fauntleroy. aOf course Flanagan sat in on our meetings where we discussed the nature of the Childas Bill of Rights; they were fully democratic, so he couldnat be left out. We were trying to hammer out something along the lines I have already mentioned to you. You see, at United Nations and UNESCO all the childrenas business is done by adults, who have no idea of what a sensible child wants; the last thing we want is any kind of independencea"make us independent and we have lost all our power. To deal as we think best with adults we must be entirely under their thumbs, which is the same thing as being on their backs: our weakness is our strength, every child knows that.a aThis child is wise beyond his years,a said Einstein.
aIndeed I am,a said Little Lord Fauntleroy. aBut Gold-Tooth Flanagan simply didnat know his business as a child. He was agitating for a Bill of Rights that would allow children to vote at the age of three, and get liquor and dope, and sue their parents for failure to bring them up properly, and ensure that when couples divorced all the a.s.sets were placed in the hands of their childrena"such crazy stuff as you never heard of, that would have robbed children of all their real power and loaded them down with a lot of hard work and financial responsibility. So it came to a showdown.a aDonat tell me Gold-Tooth Flanagan won!a said I.
aFor the present it is a draw,a said Fauntleroy. aYou see, the meeting became more and more unruly, and finally Gold-Tooth called Christopher Robin a Mother. At first I didnat think anything of that, because to me a mother means Dearest, but a Greek boy out of Aesopas Fables was sitting on the platform near me and he whispered that it was a very offensive expression, and meant somebody called Oedipus, so I asked Gold-Tooth to explain himself, and to the horror of everybody he did. Christopher Robin cried, and Alice from Wonderland hit Gold-Tooth with a croquet mallet, and when order was restored I had to speak very sharply to Gold-Tooth and he challenged me to a fight. I said I would fight him if Dougal were allowed to be the referee, but he wouldnat have that, and it looked for a moment as if things were going to be very uneven, until Huck Finn slipped something into my right hand which he said would help, and I very cleverly hit Gold-Tooth when he wasnat looking, and he fell down. But he jumped right up again and shouted Foul, and when I looked at my hand I saw that Huck had put a horseshoe in it. Then Gold-Tooth attacked me unfairly and without warning, and fought in a way that was utterly un-American, and even un-English, and when it was all overa"my authority was gone.a Here the beautiful child faltered and broke into bitter sobs.
Professor Einstein and I exchanged glances. The same thing was in both our minds. With a gentle hand the great scientist reached out towards the golden curls, and removed what was all too plainly a wig. The head beneath had been s.n.a.t.c.hed bald. Little Lord Fauntleroy, at the hands of the unspeakable Gold-Tooth Flanagan, had suffered the fate of Samson.
aHave you tried rubbing it with white of egg?a the great man asked.
aOr perhaps a top-dressing of organic fertilizer?a said I.
aIt will take months to grow to its full length,a said Fauntleroy, aand we have no time. Unless the horrible plan for a Childrenas Bill of Rights (with which Gold-Tooth Flanagan is at this very moment interpenetrating the brain cells of the a.s.sembly at U.N.) is thwarted, society as we have known it must collapse. Children will rule! Can you imagine what that will lead toa"?a aI am not sure that children would do worse with the world than their elders have done,a said Professor Einstein.
aThat would depend on what children,a said I. aTake the advice of a man steeped in literature and legend; this is War in Heaven, and instead of a defeat in which Gold-Tooth Flanagan is cast down into the Pit, to howl in torment with all his evil followers, he has achieved dominance.a aIndeed he has,a said Fauntleroy. aHeas strutting around the Childrenas Paradise flashing his gold tooth and wearing my hair!a aI see that you are right,a said Professor Einstein. aLike many childless people, I tend to have an extravagantly high opinion of children.a aYou must re-read King Lear,a said I.
aI shall do so,a said he; abut meanwhile, my child, do not lose heart. I shall go to the United Nations a.s.sembly, where I still have some spiritual influence, and do what I can.a The face of Little Lord Fauntleroy was suffused with a flush of rapture. He rushed to the great man and covered his face with kisses, while Dougal licked Einsteinas violin with his huge tongue, making it disagreeably wet.
aMeanwhile, to be on the safe side, you might try this,a said I, taking a small black bottle from beneath the top of the piano.
aYou dear old souls,a said the Wondrous Child, his eyes filling with tears, ashall I really regain my hair?a aThat isnat hair tonic,a said I; athat is a substance I use for cleaning my piano keys. It is drastic if taken internally; for instance, by anyone who was using it to clean a gold tooth.a If I am not mistaken, the child winked at me. aOh what a lovely practical joke that would be,a he said. aOf course Gold-Tooth is beyond Death, but he is certainly not beyond humiliation.a Then, seizing Dougal by the collar Lord Fauntleroy and the great dog ran toward the door. Before they reached it, they had grown dim, and vanished.
aDo you really think that children may take over the world?a I said to Professor Einstein.
aI cannot believe it,a said the great physicist. aHave I not said that G.o.d does not play at dice with the fate of the Universe?a Once again he raised his bow, and off we went into Bach. But because of Dougalas energetic licking his violin was sadly out of tune. The sound grew fainter, and I was aware of a decline in my own musical abilities until I found myself playing alone, and playing badly, and I knew that the seventeenth ghostly visitation to Ma.s.sey College had reached its end.
Offer of Immortality
Many of you who are here tonight have heard several of the Ma.s.sey College Ghost stories, and there are some who have heard them all. Seventeen stories up to the present, and all of them true. Yet I have never felt justified in taking the ghosts for granted; I have never dared to thinka"Oh, one pops up every year, and itas sure to appear on time. Ghosts do not like to be taken for granted, just as they do not like to be given orders. You will understand why I was uneasy; this is my last year as Master of Ma.s.sey College, and I should have liked to round out my time here by telling you of yet another ghost. However, a aTis not in mortals to command successa. I have no ghost for you.
However, there was somethinga"circ.u.mstances of which I ought to inform you, though when you have heard them you will understand my reluctance in making them known. Not a ghosta"noa"but something not quite in the common run of affairs. Oh, that I had the resolution to stop now, to say no more! Buta"here it is.
It happened at the end of November, when we held our last High Table for this year. We donat have High Tables in December because the College Dance and this affair are our offerings of hospitality during the Christmas season. Hospitality! It is one of the guiding lights of this College. Every honour, every consideration for our guestsa"that is our somewhat old-fashioned principle. A guest here is sacred.
On the Friday afternoon, when we were getting ready for High Table, Miss Whalon received a telephone call from Dr. Walter Zingg, the distinguished medical scientist and a Senior Fellow. aI hope it wonat upset the arrangement of the table too much,a said he, abut I should greatly like to bring a visitor who has arrived unexpectedly from South Americaa"a scientist of international renown, from Bogota, a Professor J. M. Murphy.a That was easily arranged, and when the list of guests was being prepared Miss Whalon discovered that the University from which Professor Murphy came was founded in 1572 (which makes it substantially our senior) and that it must also be one of the most exalted universities in the world, for it stands 9,000 feet above sea level. But when she finally ran the professor down in an academic directory it said only that he was a world leader in Cryonics, and that his full name was Jesus Maria Murphy.
This did not trouble me. South America is full of the descendants of Irish immigrants who retain their Irish names, although they are now almost wholly of Spanish and Indian blood. Jesus Maria Murphy would cause no more raised eyebrows in Colombia than such a name as Mackenzie King Stacey might in Canada. I didnat know what Cryonics was, but I didnat need to know; Professor Zingg would take care of all that.
I was not prepared, however, for the figure who appeared in the Senior Common Room under the wing of Dr. Zingg. I say aunder the winga advisedly, for Professor Murphy came no higher than the doctoras waist. He was the tiniest human being that I have ever seen, but that was not the only thing that gave him an air of unreality; his complexion was so rich in colour, and his hair was so glossily black that he looked like a beautifully-made doll. Hair dye and an almost operatic amount of makeup; strange in an academic, but these are permissive times. When I took his hand, it was like a tiny claw, and extraordinarily colda"so cold I almost dropped it in surprise.
When I am disconcerted I take refuge in extreme heartiness and good-fellowship, which, as most of you know, is no indication of my true nature. That is what I did when I felt that cold, cold hand.
aWelcome, Professor Murphy!a I roared; aWhat good fortune for us that you are able to dine here to-night! Ho, ho, ho!a He responded with what I suppose he meant for a reciprocal exuberance. In a thin, high voice, very much like Punch in the puppet-shows I used to see in London, he replied: aDat what you tink, eh? Locky for you? Yes, lockier dan you know! He, he, he!a I introduced Professor Murphy to some of the others who had a.s.sembled for dinner. Quite without self-consciousness he skipped up on top of the table, and stood there, so as to be able to address them face to face.
When an opportunity came, I looked enquiringly at Professor Zingg; he was blushing. aNever saw him before,a he said, abut I have to take care of him over the weekenda"keeping off big dogs and mean children and that sort of thing.a aThe Professor looks to me as if he knew how to look after himself,a said I.
Certainly he had no trouble at dinner. With that exquisite courtesy for which Ma.s.sey College is famous, our Librarian had seen that three volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary were on his chair, so that he would be at no disadvantage, and there he sat, perched on N-Poy, chattering away happily to Dr. Swinton, a man with an insatiable appet.i.te for scientific curiosities; on Murphyas other side sat Professor Hume, the Master-Designate, and I knew that those two experienced hands at college hospitality would take good care of our strange guest. But I noticed that although he chased our good dinner round his plate with his knife and fork, he ate nothing, and drank no wine.
Our steward, Mr. Stojanovich, appeared beside my chair.
aThat little gentleman, that Professor Murphy, asks if he might have some of his favourite drink.a aCertainly, if we have it,a I said..