"Oh--help yourself, pray!"
Hereupon Mr. Brimberly took a cigar very much at random, and, while Young R. watched with lazy interest, proceeded to cut it--though with singularly clumsy fingers.
"A light, Mr. Brimberly--allow me!"
So Ravenslee held the light while Mr. Brimberly puffed his cigar to a glow, though to be sure he coughed once and choked, as he met Young R."s calm grey eye.
"Now," pursued his master, "if you"re quite comfortable, Mr. Brimberly, perhaps you"ll be good enough to--er--hearken further to my tale of woe?"
Mr. Brimberly choked again and recovering, smoothed his writhing whiskers and murmured: "It would be a honour!"
"First, then, Brimberly, have you ever hated yourself--I mean, despised yourself so utterly and thoroughly that the bare idea of your existence makes you angry and indignant?"
"Why--no, sir," answered Mr. Brimberly, staring, "I can"t say as I "ave, sir."
"No," said his master with another keen glance, "and I don"t suppose you ever will!" Now here again, perhaps because of the look or something in Young R."s tone, Mr. Brimberly took occasion to emit a small, apologetic cough.
"You have never felt yourself to be a--c.u.mberer of the earth, Brimberly?"
Mr. Brimberly, having thought the matter over, decided that he had not.
"You are not given to introspection, Brimberly?"
"Intro--ahem! No, sir, not precisely--"ardly that, sir, and then only very occasional, sir!"
"Then you"ve never got on to yourself--got wise to yourself--seen yourself as you really are?"
Mr. Brimberly goggled and groped for his whisker.
"I mean," pursued his master, "you have never seen all your secret weaknesses and petty meannesses stripped stark naked, have you?"
"N-naked, sir!" faltered Mr. Brimberly, "very distressing indeed, sir--oh, dear me!"
"It"s a devilish unpleasant thing," continued Young R., scowling at the fire again, "yes, it"s a devilish unpleasant thing to go serenely on our flowery way, pitying and condemning the sins and follies of others and sublimely unconscious of our own until one day--ah, yes--one day we meet Ourselves face to face and see beneath all our pitiful shams and hypocrisies and know ourselves at last for what we really are--behold the decay of faculties, the degeneration of intellect bred of sloth and inanition and know ourselves at last--for exactly what we are!"
Mr. Brimberly stared at the preoccupation of his master"s scowling brow and grim-set mouth, and, clutching a soft handful of whisker, murmured: "Certingly, sir!"
"When I was a boy," continued Ravenslee absently, "I used to dream of the wonderful things I would do when I was a man--by the way, you"re quite sure I"m not boring you--?"
"No, sir--certingly not, sir--indeed, sir!"
"Take another cigar, Brimberly--oh, put it in your pocket, it will do to--er--to add to your collection! But, as I was saying, as a boy I was full of a G.o.dlike ambition--but, as I grew up, ambition and all the n.o.ble things it leads to, sickened and died--died of a surfeit of dollars! And to-day I am thirty-five and feel that I can"t--that I never shall--do anything worth while--"
"But, sir," exclaimed Mr. Brimberly with a bland and rea.s.suring smile, "you are one as don"t have to do nothing--you"re rich!"
Mr. Ravenslee started.
"Rich!" he cried, and turning, he glanced at Mr. Brimberly, and his square chin looked so very square and his grey eyes so very piercing that Mr. Brimberly, loosing his whisker, coughed again and shifted his gaze to the Persian rug beneath his feet; yet when Young R. spoke again, his voice was very soft and sleepy.
"Rich!" he repeated, "yes, that"s just the unspeakable h.e.l.l of it--it"s money that has crippled all endeavours and made me what I am! Rich? I"m so rich that my friends are all acquaintances--so rich that I might buy anything in the world except what I most desire--so rich that I am tired of life, the world, and everything in the world, and have been seriously considering a--er--a radical change. It is a comfort to know that we may all of us find oblivion when we so desire."
"Oblivion!" nodded Mr. Brimberly, mouthing the word sonorously, "oblivion, sir, certingly--my own sentiments exactly, sir--for, though not being a marrying man myself, sir, I regard it with a truly reverent heye and "umbly suggest that for you such a oblivious change would be--"
"Brimberly," said Young R., turning to stare in lazy wonder, "where in the world are you getting to now?"
Mr. Brimberly coughed and touched a whisker with dubious finger.
"Wasn"t you allooding to--hem!--to matrimony, sir?"
"Matrimony! Lord, no! Hardly so desperate a course as that, Brimberly. I was considering the advisability of--er--this!" And opening a drawer in the escritoire, Young R. held up a revolver, whereat Mr. Brimberly"s whiskers showed immediate signs of extreme agitation, and he started to his feet.
"Mr. Ravenslee, sir--for the love o" Gawd!" he exclaimed, "if it"s a choice between the two--try matrimony first, it"s so much--so much wholesomer, sir!"
"Is it, Brimberly? Let me see, there are about five hundred highly dignified matrons in this--er--great city, wholly eager and anxious to wed their daughters to my dollars (and incidentally myself) even if I were the vilest knave or most pitiful piece of doddering antiquity--faugh! Let"s hear no more of matrimony."
"Certingly not, sir!" bowed Mr. Brimberly.
"And I"m neither mad, Brimberly, nor drunk, only--speaking colloquially--I"m "on to" myself at last. If my father had only left me fewer millions, I might have been quite a hard-working, useful member of society, for there"s good in me, Brimberly. I am occasionally aware of quite n.o.ble impulses, but they need some object to bring "em out. An object--hum!" Here Mr. Ravenslee put away the revolver. "An object to work for, live for, be worthy of!" Here he fell to frowning into the fire again and stared thus so long that at last Mr. Brimberly felt impelled to say:
"A hobject, of course, sir! A hobject--certingly, sir!" But here he started and turned to stare toward the windows as from the darkness beyond two voices were uplifted in song; two voices these which sang the same tune and words but in two different keys, uncertain voices, now shooting up into heights, now dropping into unplumbable deeps, two shaky voices whose inconsequent quaverings suggested four legs in much the same condition.
"Brimberly," sighed his master, "what doleful wretches have we here?"
"Why, sir, I--I rather fancy it"s William and James--the footmen, sir,"
answered Mr. Brimberly between bristling whiskers. "Hexcuse me, sir--I"ll go and speak to "em, sir--"
"Oh, pray don"t trouble yourself, Mr. Brimberly; sit down and hearken!
These sad sounds are inspired by deep potations--beer, I fancy. Be seated, Mr. Brimberly."
Mr. Brimberly obeyed, and being much agitated dropped his cigar and grovelled for it, and it was to be noted thereafter that as the singers drew nearer, he shuffled on his chair with whiskers violently a-twitch, while his eyes goggled more and his domelike brow grew ever moister. But on came the singing footmen and pa.s.sed full-tongued, wailing out each word with due effect, thus:
"--my sweet "eart"s--me mother The best--the dearest--of--"em all."
"Hum!" murmured Young R., "I admire the sentiment, Brimberly, but the execution leaves something to be desired, perhaps--"
"If you"ll only let me go out to "em, sir!" groaned Mr. Brimberly, mopping himself with a very large, exceeding white handkerchief, "if you honly will, sir!"
"No, Brimberly, no--it would only distress you, besides--hark! their song is ended, and rather abruptly--I rather fancy they have fallen down the terrace steps."
"And I "opes," murmured Mr. Brimberly fervently, "I do "ope as they"ve broke their necks!"
"Of course I ought to have gone out and switched on the lights for them," sighed Young R, "but then, you see, I thought they were safe in bed, Brimberly!"
"Why, sir," said Mr. Brimberly, mopping furiously, "I--I ventured to give "em a hour"s leave of habsence, sir; I ventured so to do, sir, because, sir--"
"Because you are of rather a venturesome nature, aren"t you, Brimberly?"
"No offence, sir, I "ope?"