Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow | Page 6

and a half gallon cask, or something

similar in price, sin is robbed of its flavour.
Possibly also--let me think it--the conviction may have been within me
that Vice, even at its daintiest, is but an ugly, sordid thing, repulsive in
the sunlight; that though--as rags and dirt to art--it may afford
picturesque material to Literature, it is an evil-smelling garment to the
wearer; one that a good man, by reason of poverty of will, may come
down to, but one to be avoided with all one's effort, discarded with
returning mental prosperity.
Be this as it may, I grew weary of training for a saturnine young man;
and, in the midst of my doubt, I chanced upon a book the hero of which
was a debonnaire young buck, own cousin to Tom and Jerry. He
attended fights, both of cocks and men, flirted with actresses, wrenched
off door-knockers, extinguished street lamps, played many a merry jest
upon many an unappreciative night watch-man. For all the which he
was much beloved by the women of the book. Why should not I flirt
with actresses, put out street lamps, play pranks on policemen, and be
beloved? London life was changed since the days of my hero, but much
remained, and the heart of woman is eternal. If no longer prizefighting
was to be had, at least there were boxing competitions, so called, in
dingy back parlours out Whitechapel way. Though cockfighting was a
lost sport, were there not damp cellars near the river where for
twopence a gentleman might back mongrel terriers to kill rats against
time, and feel himself indeed a sportsman? True, the atmosphere of
reckless gaiety, always surrounding my hero, I missed myself from
these scenes, finding in its place an atmosphere more suggestive of gin,
stale tobacco, and nervous apprehension of the police; but the essentials
must have been the same, and the next morning I could exclaim in the
very words of my prototype--"Odds crickets, but I feel as though the
devil himself were in my head. Peste take me for a fool."
But in this direction likewise my fatal lack of means opposed me. (It
affords much food to the philosophic mind, this influence of income
upon character.) Even fifth-rate "boxing competitions," organized by
"friendly leads," and ratting contests in Rotherhithe slums, become
expensive, when you happen to be the only gentleman present

possessed of a collar, and are expected to do the honours of your class
in dog's-nose. True, climbing lamp-posts and putting out the gas is
fairly cheap, providing always you are not caught in the act, but as a
recreation it lacks variety. Nor is the modern London lamp-post
adapted to sport. Anything more difficult to grip--anything with less
"give" in it--I have rarely clasped. The disgraceful amount of dirt
allowed to accumulate upon it is another drawback from the climber's
point of view. By the time you have swarmed up your third post a
positive distaste for "gaiety" steals over you. Your desire is towards
arnica and a bath.
Nor in jokes at the expense of policemen is the fun entirely on your
side. Maybe I did not proceed with judgment. It occurs to me now,
looking back, that the neighbourhoods of Covent Garden and Great
Marlborough Street were ill-chosen for sport of this nature. To bonnet a
fat policeman is excellent fooling. While he is struggling with his
helmet you can ask him comic questions, and by the time he has got his
head free you are out of sight. But the game should be played in a
district where there is not an average of three constables to every dozen
square yards. When two other policemen, who have had their eye on
you for the past ten minutes, are watching the proceedings from just
round the next corner, you have little or no leisure for due enjoyment of
the situation. By the time you have run the whole length of Great
Titchfield Street and twice round Oxford Market, you are of opinion
that a joke should never be prolonged beyond the point at which there
is danger of its becoming wearisome; and that the time has now arrived
for home and friends. The "Law," on the other hand, now raised by
reinforcements to a strength of six or seven men, is just beginning to
enjoy the chase. You picture to yourself, while doing Hanover Square,
the scene in Court the next morning. You will be accused of being
drunk and disorderly. It will be idle for you to explain to the magistrate
(or to your relations afterwards) that you were only trying to live up to
a man who did this sort of thing in a book and was admired for it. You
will be fined the usual forty shillings; and