Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 294
“I imagine,” continued the clergyman, “that it’s my sebaceous glands? Don’t you think so?”
“Possibly so,” said Mr. Pickwick.
“Though it may be merely some form of subcutaneous irritation — —”
“Quite likely,” said Mr. Pickwick.
“You see,” continued the old gentleman, “it’s always possible that there’s some kind of duodenal perforation — —”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.
The fortunate entry of Mr. Wardle with a trayful of cocktails carried aloft by the Thin Boy interrupted this ultra-medical conversation.
“These cocktails,” proclaimed Mr. Wardle in the same tone of irritation and challenge with which he had passed the wine, “you may rely upon absolutely. There is no bootlegged stuff used in them.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Pickwick, smiling, “and what is the principal ingredient?”
“Harness oil,” said Mr. Wardle. “They were made here in the house by my old mother herself. Mother, your health!”
“Your health, madam,” echoed all the company, while the guests with a resolution worthy of the sturdy race from which they sprang, drained the glasses with the unflinching courage of the Briton.
It would be as tedious as it would be needless to trace in detail the slow progress of the meal which followed. The oil cocktails indeed induced a temporary and hectic rise in spirits which lasted through the first of the many courses of that interminable meal. But the fires, thus falsely raised, died easily down.
Mr. Pickwick found himself seated between the old lady, who entertained him with a sustained account of her rheumatism, and the ancient clergyman, who apparently found his sole intellectual diversion in the discussion of his glands.
Nor is it necessary to relate in detail the drear passage of the long evening in the drawing-room which followed upon the long dinner in the dining-room. Mr. Pickwick found himself at the card table, with his friend Mr. Tupman as his opponent and two elderly, angular and silent spinsters as their partners. Here Mr. Pickwick slowly passed from dryness to desiccation; from desiccation to utter aridity such that the sand in the desert of Sahara was moistness itself in comparison. More than once he almost broke his fixed resolutions and dashed off to his room to fetch down the bottle of the “real old stuff” which lay in the pocket of his greatcoat. But his firm resolve to share it with his host and to produce it as the final triumph of the evening kept him from so doing. His sufferings were all the more intense in that some instinct warned him that there was, as it were, “something doing” among the younger people to which he was not a party. There were frequent absences from the card-room on the part of Winkle and Snodgrass and the two young medicos, closely coincident with similar absences of the lovely Emily and the dashing Arabella — absences from which the young people returned with laughing faces and sparkling eyes — in short, Mr. Pickwick had that exasperating feeling that somebody somewhere was getting a drink and that he was not in on it. Only those who have felt this — and their numbers are many — can measure the full meaning of it.
The evening, however, like all things human, drew at length to its close. And as the guests rose from the card tables Mr. Pickwick felt that the moment had at length arrived when he might disclose to the assembled company his carefully planned and welcome surprise.
Mr. Pickwick signalled to the Thin Boy, who had remained in attendance in a corner of the room. “Go up to my bedroom, Joe,” he said, “and you’ll see a bottle — —”
“I seen it already,” said the Thin Boy.
“Very good,” said Mr. Pickwick, “fetch it here.”
“And now,” said Mr. Pickwick, when the bottle was presently brought and placed with the cork removed beside him on the table, “I have a toast to propose.” He knocked upon the table in order to call the attention of the company, some of whom were already leaving the room while others still stood about the table.
“The toast of Christmas!” said Mr. Pickwick, holding aloft the bottle. At the sight of it and with the prospect of a real drink before them the company broke into loud applause.
“This bottle, my dear old friend,” continued Mr. Pickwick, his face resuming as he spoke all of its old-time geniality and his gold spectacles irradiating the generosity of his heart, as he turned to Mr. Wardle, “ — this bottle I have bought specially for you. I could have wished that this bottle, like the fabled bottle of the Arabian nights (I think it was the Arabian nights; at any rate, certain nights) — that this bottle was everlasting and unemptiable. As it is, I fear I can only offer to each of us a mere pretence of a potation. But for you, my dear Wardle, I insist that there shall be a real bumper, a brimming bumper.”
Mr. Pickwick suited the action to the word, and filling a glass to the brim, he handed it across the table to Mr. Wardle.
“You, Wardle, shall set us a good example by first draining this glass in honour of the spirit of Christmas!”
The kindly face of Mr. Wardle betrayed a noble struggle in which the desire for a drink, a real drink, struggled for mastery with more magnanimous feelings. He hesitated. He paused. The liquid in the glass might be dull in colour and lustreless to the eye, but the pungent aroma, or odour, with which it seemed to fill the room bore witness at least to the strength of it.
“Pickwick,” said Wardle, deeply moved, “I can’t. You are too kind,” and then suddenly: “Damn it. I will.”
And as if anxious to leave no room for any weakening of his resolution, Mr. Wardle lifted the glass and drained it to the bottom. Only when he had consumed the last drop did he set the glass down upon the table. He set it down, so it seemed to those about him, with a slow and heavy hand, and stood a moment, after his potation, as if pausing for speech.
“Pickwick,” he said at last, “it’s — you are — —”
His utterance sounded suddenly thick. His eye seemed fixed in a strange way. He looked straight in front of him, not at his old friend, but as it were into nothingness.
“Pickwick,” he repeated, and then, in a loud voice like a cry of fear:
“Pickwick!”
Wardle’s hands groped at the edge of the table. He swayed a moment, trying in vain to hold his balance, and then sank down in a heap against the edge of the table, unconscious, his breath coming in heavy gasps.
Mr. Pickwick rushed to Wardle’s side. The affrighted guests gathered about him in a group, vainly endeavouring to recall the good old man to consciousness.
Mr. Pickwick alone retained some measure of decision. “Sawyer,” he said, “where’s Sawyer? Sam, Joe — quick, go and find Mr. Sawyer!”
“Here, sir,” said the voice of the young medico re-entering the room to which the tumult had recalled him.
He stepped up to Wardle’s side and seized his wrist with one hand and with the other opened Mr. Wardle’s waistcoat to feel the beating of the heart.
Silence fell upon the room, broken only by the stertorous breathing of the old man lying against the table. The eyes of the guests were fixed upon young Bob Sawyer, who stood silent and intent, feeling for the beating of the flickering pulse, transformed in a moment by the instinct and inspiration of his profession from a roystering boy to a man of medicine.
Sawyer’s eye fell upon the empty and reeking glass. “What did he drink?” he asked.
“This,” said Mr. Pickwick, silently passing the bottle to the young man. Bob Sawyer, with a shake of the head, released the wrist of Mr. Wardle. He poured a few spoonfuls of the liquid into the glass and with the utmost caution tasted it with the tip of his tongue.
“Good God!” he said.
“What is it,” said Mr. Pickwick, “raw alcohol?”
“With at least fifteen per cent of cyanide,” said Bob Sawyer.
“And that means?” Mr. Pickwick asked with an agonized look at his old friend, whose breath had now grown faint and from whose face all vestige of colour was rapidly fading.
Bob Sawyer shook his head.
“It means death,” he said. “He is dying now.”
Mr. Pickwick threw his arms about the shoulders of his old friend. In an agony of remorse, he felt himself the destroyer of the man whom he had loved beyond all his friends. His own hand, his own act had brought about this terrible and overwhelming tragedy.
“Wardle, Wardle,” he cried in tones of despair, “speak to me. Wake up! Wake up!”
Again and again, so it seemed at least to himself, he cried, “Wake up, wake up!”
Then as he repeated the words yet again Mr. Pickwick suddenly realized that not he but some one else was vociferating, “Wake up, wake up!”
The voice echoed in his brain, driving out of it the last vestiges of sleep.
With a gasp of relief, as of one rescued from the terrors of a dreadful dream, Mr. Pickwick slowly opened his eyes and assumed a sitting posture, his hands still grasping the coverlet of the bed.
“Wake up, Pickwick, wake up. Merry Christmas!”
There was no doubt of it now! It was the voice of Mr. Tupman, or rather the combined voices of Mr. Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle, all fully dressed for the coaching journey and gathered in gay assemblage about the bed of their tardy leader.
It seemed too good to be true! Here was the cheerful face of Mr. Tupman beaming with Christmas salutations as he pulled back the window curtains and let the sunlight flood into the room — here was Mr. Snodgrass arrayed in the bright finery of a poet on a Christmas holiday, and here, most emphatical of all, was Mr. Winkle proffering to Mr. Pickwick a tall bubbling glass of brandy and soda that leaped and sparkled in the beams of sunlight as one of those early pick-me-ups or restoratives, so essential for the proper beginning of a proper Christmas.
“Bless my soul!” said Mr. Pickwick, shaking off the remnants of his terrible dream. The great man leaped from his bed and assuming a dressing-gown rushed to the window and looked into the inn yard. There was the coach, gaily bedecked with sprigs of holly, in the very imminence of preparation for departure, the horses tossing at the bits, the postillions about to mount, the guard fingering his key bugle for a preparatory blast and Mr. Sam Weller in his familiar wide-awake, his face illuminated with its familiar good nature, gaily tossing minor articles of luggage in graceful spirals to the roof of the coach.
Mr. Pickwick, with one last shuddering recollection of the world of the future, slipped back a hundred years into the Good Old Days of the past.
RATIFICATION OF THE NEW NAVAL DISAGREEMENT. (An Extract from the Annual Register of 1933)
THE PRINCIPAL EVENT of the year just passed (1932) was undoubtedly the successful discussion and ratification of the new international naval disagreement.
By the opening of that year practically all of the existing disagreements had either lapsed, or had gradually worn out. The international situation was rapidly sinking into stagnation, in which naval defence was discouraged and public interest diverted towards other channels. All the Chancelleries reported that a new and dangerous tendency towards international sports, puzzle competitions and international Tom Thumb golf was largely responsible for the lack of public enthusiasm over naval expenditure. Under these circumstances naval defence, instead of being a pleasure, was becoming a burden, and the public Press of all countries echoed and re-echoed this new nature of the heavy burden of naval armament. It was even whispered in diplomatic circles that the mind and conscience of the civilized world were set more and more against war.
It was felt, therefore, that what was needed was something to give tangible expression to this new feeling of brother love among the nations: in short, something to put a little “pep” into the naval idea. Nor was anything better calculated to do this than the idea of complete naval disarmament, subject only to the retention of such naval ships as might be needed for purposes of defence, that is to say, for the object of maritime combat, in other words, as combat. At the same time it was desired to cut down all coastal defence to the mere amount necessary to defend the coasts. The general suggestion of reducing the building of submarines and confining it to the construction of boats needed underwater, was further aided by the general wish to confine aerial defence to the air.
As a result of these motive forces of international goodwill, the opening of the year witnesses a series of gestures of mutual reassurance.
In January the British Government, in announcing the building of five new battle cruisers, declared that this was intended as a first stage in naval disarmament and that the new cruisers would be armed with 18-inch guns.
The Premier of France, referring in a speech before the Deputies to this splendid pacific gesture on the part of Britain, said that France cherished the ideal of peace as the true French policy and stated that in pursuit of this policy the government would at once lay down the keels of three battleships of the first class.
The British, he said, were a noble nation and it was gratifying to think that war between France and Britain was at once and for ever impossible; otherwise, he added, the British might get a bad licking.
Replying to this a few nights later in the House of Commons, the leader of the Government said that he regarded the French as his brothers; they might, he added, be our inferiors in many ways, but for his part, since he had recognized them as brothers, he felt himself bound to live up to the ideal of brotherhood; this, he said, would only apply as long as the French behaved themselves.
The naval debate thus originated in the British and French Parliaments was re-echoed in the other European countries. In the Reichstag, Herr Dudelsach explained that Germany was entirely pacific in character and deprecated all militaristic preparation.
The Germans were friends with everybody. The great guns that were being built at Kiel and about which so much misunderstanding had arisen were intended merely as demonstrations of friendship.
In the same way, the vast new chemical factory on the Elbe was entirely and only an expression of international unity and love.
The Italian Parliament, in accepting the Government’s proposal for fifty new destroyers of high speed, called attention to the fact that these destroyers would merely enable Italy to convey messages of greeting to other nations more quickly than ever before. Italy was all for peace, declared the dictator, and if any one denied it, Italy would knock his block off.
It was at this junction that the United States, through its corps of ambassadors, offered its good offices to compose the growing unrest in Europe.
In a general ambassadorial message, it was explained that America viewed with concern the lack of harmony among the European powers. If the European powers would only try to realize what a poor set of snipes they were, they would cease to quarrel. They would feel too sorry for themselves.
The United States, in order to allay the growing danger in Europe, offered to build twelve more battle cruisers of the highest efficiency. If need be, it would build more; in fact, it would build just as many as the European nations needed to keep them quiet.
These ships, it was added, would be built entirely at the expense of the United States and would cost Europe nothing, but would be ready for use in the interests of Europe at any moment. The United States had no interests of its own; no interests, no designs, no ideas, no prejudices, no thoughts — nothing.
Unfortunately, the American naval rescript, while undoubtedly helpful in general, provoked in certain circles an unreasoning resentment. Lord Bulkinthehead, the leader of downright opinion in England, asked the Americans plainly who they thought they were. The French Minister of Finance stated that he might reluctantly be compelled to raise the hotel rates against the Americans.
The rising trouble was somewhat appeased by a pacific speech from the British Prime Minister, in connection with the building of thirty new submersible warships.
The Americans, he said, were tied to the British by bonds far more lasting than mere iron and steel. The original kinship between the two nations had been strengthened by a century of unbroken friendship.
He said it was pleasant to think that it was over a hundred years since the Shannon had whipped the Chesapeake, and he had every hope that it would probably not need to be done again.
The Prime Minister’s speech was warmly received in the American Press, and his sentiments in regard to the long-continued peace were everywhere echoed with approval.
It was recalled also that it was now nearly a hundred and fifty years since General Jackson licked the British at New Orleans and drowned them in the Gulf of Mexico.
It was this increasingly satisfactory situation that brought about the famous Naval Disagreement Agreement of 1932, which may be expected to have settled for a long time to come all outstanding naval problems.
The conference was summoned by the Government of Liberia, and consisted of delegates sent from each of the great governments of Europe and America, each Government paying its own expenses, except laundry.
Its proceedings resulted in the drafting and ratification of the 1933 Naval Disagreement. Its principal terms may be summarized as follows:
I. All participating nations agree that war is very wicked.
This resolution, presented to the conference by the Ladies’ Fortnightly Club of Monrovia, Liberia, was almost unanimously carried, China and Nicaragua alone dissenting. It was felt that the recognition of this principle alone would go far to prevent future conflicts.
II. It is agreed that no nation will ever begin a war without announcing it over the radio the same evening.
III. Each contracting nation pledges itself never to carry on a war unless it has something to gain by it.
IV. Each of the great naval powers limits itself to building enough ships to lick all the others.
The compact thus drafted was accepted and ratified with enthusiasm by the delegates of all the great nations concerned. The Prime Minister of Great Britain, in accepting the honorary degree of D.F. awarded him by the University of Liberia in recognition of his work for peace, declared that Britain accepted the new regime wholeheartedly and would at once build half a dozen new dry docks to help the United States carry out the Eighteenth Amendment.
