Lifes Handicap | Page 7

preserving the air of heavy business-like stolidity
that hid the shadow on his mind, turned investments, houses, and lands
into sovereigns---rich, round, red, English sovereigns, each one worth
twenty shillings. Lands may become valueless, and houses fly
heavenward on the wings of red flame, but till the Day of Judgment a
sovereign will always be a sovereign--that is to say, a king of pleasures.
Possessed of his sovereigns, John Hay would fain have spent them one
by one on such coarse amusements as his soul loved; but he was
haunted by the instant fear of Death; for the ghost of his relative stood

in the hall of his house close to the hat-rack, shouting up the stairway
that life was short, that there was no hope of increase of days, and that
the undertakers were already roughing out his nephew's coffin. John
Hay was generally alone in the house, and even when he had company,
his friends could not hear the clamorous uncle. The shadow inside his
brain grew larger and blacker. His fear of death was driving John Hay
mad.
Then, from the deeps of his mind, where he had stowed away all his
discarded information, rose to light the scientific fact of the Easterly
journey. On the next occasion that his uncle shouted up the stairway
urging him to make haste and live, a shriller voice cried, 'Who goes
round the world once easterly, gains one day.'
His growing diffidence and distrust of mankind made John Hay
unwilling to give this precious message of hope to his friends. They
might take it up and analyse it. He was sure it was true, but it would
pain him acutely were rough hands to examine it too closely. To him
alone of all the toiling generations of mankind had the secret of
immortality been vouchsafed. It would be impious--against all the
designs of the Creator-- to set mankind hurrying eastward. Besides, this
would crowd the steamers inconveniently, and John Hay wished of all
things to be alone. If he could get round the world in two months--some
one of whom he had read, he could not remember the name, had
covered the passage in eighty days--he would gain a clear day; and by
steadily continuing to do it for thirty years, would gain one hundred
and eighty days, or nearly the half of a year. It would not be much, but
in course of time, as civilisation advanced, and the Euphrates Valley
Railway was opened, he could improve the pace.
Armed with many sovereigns, John Hay, in the thirty-fifth year of his
age, set forth on his travels, two voices bearing him company from
Dover as he sailed to Calais. Fortune favoured him. The Euphrates
Valley Railway was newly opened, and he was the first man who took
ticket direct from Calais to Calcutta--thirteen days in the train. Thirteen
days in the train are not good for the nerves; but he covered the world
and returned to Calais from America in twelve days over the two
months, and started afresh with four and twenty hours of precious time
to his credit. Three years passed, and John Hay religiously went round
this earth seeking for more time wherein to enjoy the remainder of his

sovereigns. He became known on many lines as the man who wanted to
go on; when people asked him what he was and what he did, he
answered--
'I'm the person who intends to live, and I am trying to do it now.'
His days were divided between watching the white wake spinning
behind the stern of the swiftest steamers, or the brown earth flashing
past the windows of the fastest trains; and he noted in a pocket-book
every minute that he had railed or screwed out of remorseless eternity.
'This is better than praying for long life,' quoth John Hay as he turned
his face eastward for his twentieth trip. The years had done more for
him than he dared to hope.
By the extension of the Brahmaputra Valley line to meet the newly-
developed China Midland, the Calais railway ticket held good via
Karachi and Calcutta to Hongkong. The round trip could be managed in
a fraction over forty-seven days, and, filled with fatal exultation, John
Hay told the secret of his longevity to his only friend, the house-keeper
of his rooms in London. He spoke and passed; but the woman was one
of resource, and immediately took counsel with the lawyers who had
first informed John Hay of his golden legacy. Very many sovereigns
still remained, and another Hay longed to spend them on things more
sensible than railway tickets and steamer accommodation.
The chase was long, for when a man is journeying literally for the dear
life, he does not tarry upon the road. Round