Paul Kelver | Page 6

me.
"'The people!'" it retorts, "what are you all but children in a dim-lit
room, waiting until one by one you are called out to sleep. And one
mounts upon a stool and tells a tale to the others who have gathered
round. Who shall say what will please them, what will not."
Returning home with musing footsteps through the softly breathing

streets, I ponder the words of the old House. Is it but as some foolish
mother thinking all the world interested in her child, or may there lie
wisdom in its counsel? Then to my guidance or misguidance comes the
thought of a certain small section of the Public who often of an evening
commands of me a story; and who, when I have told her of the dreadful
giants and of the gallant youths who slay them, of the wood-cutter's
sons who rescue maidens from Ogre-guarded castles; of the Princesses
the most beautiful in all the world, of the Princes with magic swords,
still unsatisfied, creeps closer yet, saying: "Now tell me a real story,"
adding for my comprehending: "You know: about a little girl who lived
in a big house with her father and mother, and who was sometimes
naughty, you know."
So perhaps among the many there may be some who for a moment will
turn aside from tales of haughty Heroes, ruffling it in Court and Camp,
to listen to the story of a very ordinary lad who lived with very ordinary
folk in a modern London street, and who grew up to be a very ordinary
sort of man, loving a little and grieving a little, helping a few and
harming a few, struggling and failing and hoping; and if any such there
be, let them come round me.
But let not those who come to me grow indignant as they listen, saying:
"This rascal tells us but a humdrum story, where nothing is as it should
be;" for I warn all beforehand that I tell but of things that I have seen.
My villains, I fear, are but poor sinners, not altogether bad; and my
good men but sorry saints. My princes do not always slay their dragons;
alas, sometimes, the dragon eats the prince. The wicked fairies often
prove more powerful than the good. The magic thread leads sometimes
wrong, and even the hero is not always brave and true.
So let those come round me only who will be content to hear but their
own story, told by another, saying as they listen, "So dreamt I. Ah, yes,
that is true, I remember."

CHAPTER I

PAUL, ARRIVED IN A STRANGE LAND, LEARNS MANY
THINGS, AND GOES TO MEET THE MAN IN GREY.
Fate intended me for a singularly fortunate man. Properly, I ought to
have been born in June, which being, as is well known, the luckiest
month in all the year for such events, should, by thoughtful parents, be
more generally selected. How it was I came to be born in May, which is,
on the other hand, of all the twelve the most unlucky, as I have proved,
I leave to those more conversant with the subject to explain. An early
nurse, the first human being of whom I have any distinct recollection,
unhesitatingly attributed the unfortunate fact to my natural impatience;
which quality she at the same time predicted would lead me into even
greater trouble, a prophecy impressed by future events with the stamp
of prescience. It was from this same bony lady that I likewise learned
the manner of my coming. It seems that I arrived, quite unexpectedly,
two hours after news had reached the house of the ruin of my father's
mines through inundation; misfortunes, as it was expounded to me,
never coming singly in this world to any one. That all things might be
of a piece, my poor mother, attempting to reach the bell, fell against
and broke the cheval-glass, thus further saddening herself with the
conviction--for no amount of reasoning ever succeeded in purging her
Welsh blood of its natural superstition--that whatever might be the
result of future battles with my evil star, the first seven years of tiny
existence had been, by her act, doomed to disaster.
"And I must confess," added the knobbly Mrs. Fursey, with a sigh, "it
does look as though there must be some truth in the saying, after all."
"Then ain't I a lucky little boy?" I asked. For hitherto it had been Mrs.
Fursey's method to impress upon me my exceptional good fortune. That
I could and did, involuntarily, retire to bed at six, while less happily
placed children were deprived of their natural rest until eight or nine
o'clock, had always been held up to me as an astounding piece of luck.
Some little