It Never Can Happen Again. William De Morgan

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СКАЧАТЬ she repeated. And Lizarann looked up from the slate to see who else was in the room, that Teacher could be speaking to. But seeing no one, and being a sharp little girl, she perceived that it was her friend the gentleman that was addressed. Only, of course, she couldn't guess that it was a sort of nickname, given, years ago, to her brother's schoolfellow by her friend the lady.

      "I should, a good deal. It's not the right sort of day at all for little girls with coughs. How shall we console her?"

      "You must."

      "I suppose I shall have to, Addie. I always have to do all the dirty work." This metaphor distracted Lizarann's attention from two uneven numbers, one of which had to be took off the other and wouldn't come out right. Did the New Police scrub underneath the beds, clear the flues of sut, scour out the sink, and so on? Impossible! He went on: "Look here, Lizarann! You're a good little girl, aren't you?"

      "Yass!"

      "And you're not going to cry—that's about it, isn't it?"

      "Ye-e-e—yass!" She is not quite so confident about this, but will conciliate public opinion to the best of her ability.

      "Well, Lizarann, the doctor says we mustn't see Daddy till—till a day or two." The small face clouds over pitifully. The disappointment is bitter. But Lizarann won't cry—well!—not yet, anyhow. Yorick continues: "I shall go to the Sospital to hear about Daddy, and come back and tell. But you mustn't go yet, because it would hurt Daddy." He conceals his consciousness of the background of tears to the child's Spartan resolution.

      "You'll see it will come, though," says Miss Fossett, saying good-bye at the street-door. "She'll have a good cry about it when you're gone.... But oh dear!—what a lot of stories you have told that child, Yorick."

      "Of course I did. You put it on me, Addie, and then you sneak out! I call it mean. But oh dear!—what a lot of stories one does have to tell children!"

      "You never tell them stories about anything you think serious. I know you don't."

      "Yes, I do. I tell them as matter of knowledge what I know to be only matter of belief. They wouldn't believe it if I didn't say I knew it."

      "But you believe it?"

      "I do. But I don't know it. Good-bye, Addie! I shall keep my promise about the Hospital, though, and bring the news back. Cosset over the little woman and console her." Which Teacher really did to the best of her ability, but the fact is that though Lizarann was brave, she was inconsolable. And—what was bitterest of all—she felt that faith had been broken with her; which, coming home too late to Miss Fossett, made her think that it might have been better to tell a child of Lizarann's character the real reason why she wasn't to go to Daddy. It was a doubtful point, though. Besides, it was far from certain, after all, that she could have seen Daddy if she had been taken to the Hospital. It would have been the worst result of all to fail in that, and have all the exposure for nothing.

      So the Rev. Athelstan—or Yorick—certainly thought, as he started to walk to St. Brides, meaning to avail himself of a townward-bound hansom if one should overtake him before he got to the tram. Omnibuses were all full, apparently, inside and out; and the opportunity of enjoying a rapid thaw was open to those who had for three weeks been praying for one. Streets overwhelmed with insufferable slush, and what was beautiful clean snow only a few hours since turned to torrents of an inkiness defying explanation. Roads that made even the sufferer by the slides we so enjoyed the making of in the early morning wish that he, too, was on our side, and could benefit by them, and knock double-knocks on them and never tumble. And see them now, turned to mere ill-mixed morass—floating pea-soup ankle-deep! Scavengers' carts that seemed to spill more than they removed, and persons of low ideals of energy losing sight of the objects for whose attainment they had been entrusted with brooms and rakes, and contented to do nothing particular with them, in rows. Malignant persons on roof-tops discharging wicked accumulations on unsuspecting heads, and shouting out "Be-low!" at the moment of impact. Butchers' carts coming as close to you as possible, to splash mud in your mouth and inside your collar, and reaching the horizon long before you become articulate to curse them. And then that saddest of all depressing sights, the skater who has been warned off the ice that won't be dangerous for another hour at least, and is going home swinging his skates and doubting the benevolence of his Maker.

      So onward, through abating suburb and increasing town, to the zone of the Effectual. Of impatient carts that won't wait for the snow to thaw, but snap it up and carry it away without offering to account for their conduct; of mowing-machines fitted with Brobdingnag revolving hair-brushes that will have to be washed now to be put to their proper use again, after sweeping up all that equivocal mess parallel with the kerbstone; of turncocks looking happy from human appreciation in great force, and alone able to cope with obstructions or relaxations in the bowels of the earth whose nature we outsiders can only dimly guess at. So travelling onward, on foot and by tram, the Rev. Athelstan arrived at his destination, and slipping the fare he had provided for the cab he had discarded into the contribution-box at the gate, entered St. Brides Hospital.

      "I didn't know you were in these parts, Taylor," said his friend, the House Surgeon. "Haven't seen you for a century.... Yes!—I know I am right. It's two years next Lady Day. How's the family? How's Miss Caldecott?... all right, are they? That's well. Now let's have a look at you. Turn round to the light...."

      "I'm all right."

      "Didn't say you weren't. Let's have a look! Turn well round and show yourself ... h'm!"

      "Well!—what's the matter?"

      "I thought as much! You've been dissipating, my man. Your sort of dissipation! What was it this time? You've been up all night, my good sir! It's no use your trying to deceive me."

      "'I will not deceive you, my sweet!'" Mr. Taylor quoted Mrs. Gamp, and was understood. "I chanced upon a bad case of delirium tremens threatening its lawful wife with a knife, and I stayed to see it out. Poor fellow!"

      "H'm—why poor fellow?"

      "Because I locked him up and went for the doctor round the corner. He said he knew you. Man of the name of Ferris. Good sort of little chap...."

      "I know him. Saw him yesterday—came to see a patient here. Well!—what did he say to your man?"

      "He never saw him alive. While I was away the poor fellow escaped out of the room, ran a mile and a half through the snow, and pitched himself into a canal-lock.... Oh yes!—he was fished out dead from under the ice...."

      "Rather a good job, I should think.... However, perhaps I oughtn't to say that...."

      "Glad to hear you say so, Crumpton! It sounds hopeful."

      "I didn't mean that way. I meant he might have been an interesting case. Anyhow, there's an end of him!"

      "I wish I could think that. But suppose I tell you what brings me here now: we can quarrel about the human soul after. I want to hear about a man that was brought in yesterday night, a blind sailor-beggar that was run over. Have you seen him?"

      "Rather! I helped to get his leg off, just above the knee. A very good case—a very good case!"

      "What does that mean!—a very good case?"

      "Means that if the limb hadn't been taken off on the nail, septic poisoning might have set in—yes!—already!—By the merest chance Brantock was here when he was brought СКАЧАТЬ