Foe-Farrell | Page 2

that always
knew how to dress--and the summer evening over Hyde Park Corner
and the Green Park. . . . No, I mustn't go on. It is verboten even to think
of a white shirt until the Bosch hangs out the tail of his.
"My youngsters are missing all this, I tell myself. Yet they are a
cheerful crowd, and keep smiling on their Papa. The worst is, a kind of
paralysis seems to have smitten our home mails and general transport
for close upon a fortnight. No letters, no parcels--but one case of wine,

six weeks overdue, with half the bottles in shards: no newspapers. This
last specially afflicts young Sammy Barham, who is a glutton for the
halfpenny press: which again is odd, because his comments on it are
vitriolic.
"No books--that's the very worst. Our mess library went astray in the
last move: no great loss perhaps except for the Irish R.M., which I was
reading for the nth time. The only relic that survives, and follows us
everywhere like an intelligent hound, is a novel of Scottish sentiment,
entitled But and Ben. The heroine wears (p. 2) a dress of 'some soft
white clinging material'--which may account for it. Young Y.-Smith,
who professes to have read the work from cover to cover, asserts that
this material clings to her throughout: but I doubt the thoroughness of
his perusal since he explained to us that 'Ben' and 'But' were the
play-names of the lad and his lassie. . . . For our personal libraries we
possess:
"R.O.--A hulking big copy of the International Code of Signals: a
putrid bad book, of which I am preparing, in odd moments, a recension,
to submit to the Board of Trade. Y.-Smith borrows this off me now and
then, to learn up the flags at the beginning. He gloats on crude colours.
"Polkinghorne--A Bible, which I borrow, sometimes for private study,
sometimes (you understand?) for professional purposes. It contains a
Book of Common Prayer as well as the Apocrypha. P. (a Cornishman,
something of a mystic, two years my senior and full of mining
experiences in Nevada and S. America) always finds a difficulty in
parting with this, his one book. He is deep in it, this moment, at the far
end of the table.
"Sammy Barham, so far as anyone can discover, has never read a book
in his life nor wanted to. He was educated at Harrow. Lacking the Daily
Mail, he is miserable just now, poor boy! I almost forgave the Code
upon discovering that his initials, S.B., spell, for a distress signal, 'Can
you lend (or give) me a newspaper?'
"Yarrell-Smith reads Penny Dreadfuls. He owns four, and was kind
enough, the other day, to lend me one: but it's a trifle too artless even

for my artless mind.
"Young Williams--a promising puppy sent up to me to be
walked--reads nothing at all. He brought two packs of Patience cards
and a Todhunter's Euclid; the one to rest, the other to stimulate, his
mind; and I've commandeered the Euclid. A great writer, Sally! He's
not juicy, and he don't palpitate, but he's an angel for style. 'Therefore
the triangle DBC is equal to the triangle ABC--pause and count
three--'the less to the greater'--pause--'which is absurd.' Neat and
demure: and you're constantly coming on little things like that. 'Two
straight lines cannot enclose a space'--so broad and convincing, when
once pointed out!--and why is it not in The Soldiers' Pocket-Book under
'Staff Axioms'?
"When you make up the next parcel, stick in a few of the unlikeliest
books. I don't want Paley's Evidences of Christianity: I have tackled
that for my Little-Go, and, besides, we have plenty of 'em out here: but
books about Ireland, and the Near East, and local government, and
farm-labourers' wages, and the future life, and all that sort of thing.
"Two nights ago, Polkinghorne got going on our chances in another
world. Polkinghorne is a thoughtful man in his way, rising forty--don't
know his religion. I had an idea somehow that he was interested in such
things. But to my astonishment the boys took him up and were off in
full cry. It appeared that each one had been nursing his own thoughts
on the subject. The trouble was, none of us knew very much about it--"
Otway, writing beneath the hurricane-lamp, had reached this point in
his letter when young Barham exclaimed to the world at large:
"Hallo! here's a tall story!"
The C.O. looked up. So did Polkinghorne, from his Bible. Sammy held
a torn sheet of newspaper.
"Don't keep it to yourself, my son," said Otway, laying down his pen
and leaning back, so that his face passed out of the inner circle of the
lamplight.

Sammy bent forward, pushed the paper nearer