The Dynamiter | Page 3

to fall to be a
working man.'
'Fall to be a working man?' echoed Mr. Godall. 'Suppose a rural dean to
be unfrocked, does he fall to be a major? suppose a captain were

cashiered, would he fall to be a puisne judge? The ignorance of your
middle class surprises me. Outside itself, it thinks the world to lie quite
ignorant and equal, sunk in a common degradation; but to the eye of the
observer, all ranks are seen to stand in ordered hierarchies, and each
adorned with its particular aptitudes and knowledge. By the defects of
your education you are more disqualified to be a working man than to
be the ruler of an empire. The gulf, sir, is below; and the true learned
arts--those which alone are safe from the competition of insurgent
laymen--are those which give his title to the artisan.'
'This is a very pompous fellow,' said Challoner, in the ear of his
companion.
'He is immense,' said Somerset.
Just then the door of the divan was opened, and a third young fellow
made his appearance, and rather bashfully requested some tobacco. He
was younger than the others; and, in a somewhat meaningless and
altogether English way, he was a handsome lad. When he had been
served, and had lighted his pipe and taken his place upon the sofa, he
recalled himself to Challoner by the name of Desborough.
'Desborough, to be sure,' cried Challoner. 'Well, Desborough, and what
do you do?'
'The fact is,' said Desborough, 'that I am doing nothing.'
'A private fortune possibly?' inquired the other.
'Well, no,' replied Desborough, rather sulkily. 'The fact is that I am
waiting for something to turn up.'
'All in the same boat!' cried Somerset. 'And have you, too, one hundred
pounds?'
'Worse luck,' said Mr. Desborough.
'This is a very pathetic sight, Mr. Godall,' said Somerset: 'Three futiles.'
'A character of this crowded age,' returned the salesman.
'Sir,' said Somerset, 'I deny that the age is crowded; I will admit one
fact, and one fact only: that I am futile, that he is futile, and that we are
all three as futile as the devil. What am I? I have smattered law,
smattered letters, smattered geography, smattered mathematics; I have
even a working knowledge of judicial astrology; and here I stand, all
London roaring by at the street's end, as impotent as any baby. I have a
prodigious contempt for my maternal uncle; but without him, it is idle
to deny it, I should simply resolve into my elements like an unstable

mixture. I begin to perceive that it is necessary to know some one thing
to the bottom--were it only literature. And yet, sir, the man of the world
is a great feature of this age; he is possessed of an extraordinary mass
and variety of knowledge; he is everywhere at home; he has seen life in
all its phases; and it is impossible but that this great habit of existence
should bear fruit. I count myself a man of the world, accomplished,
CAP-A-PIE. So do you, Challoner. And you, Mr. Desborough?'
'Oh yes,' returned the young man.
'Well then, Mr. Godall, here we stand, three men of the world, without
a trade to cover us, but planted at the strategic centre of the universe
(for so you will allow me to call Rupert Street), in the midst of the chief
mass of people, and within ear-shot of the most continuous chink of
money on the surface of the globe. Sir, as civilised men, what do we do?
I will show you. You take in a paper?'
'I take,' said Mr. Godall solemnly, 'the best paper in the world, the
Standard.'
'Good,' resumed Somerset. 'I now hold it in my hand, the voice of the
world, a telephone repeating all men's wants. I open it, and where my
eye first falls--well, no, not Morrison's Pills--but here, sure enough, and
but a little above, I find the joint that I was seeking; here is the weak
spot in the armour of society. Here is a want, a plaint, an offer of
substantial gratitude: "TWO HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD.--The
above reward will be paid to any person giving information as to the
identity and whereabouts of a man observed yesterday in the
neighbourhood of the Green Park. He was over six feet in height, with
shoulders disproportionately broad, close shaved, with black
moustaches, and wearing a sealskin great-coat." There, gentlemen, our
fortune, if not made, is founded.'
'Do you then propose, dear boy, that we should turn detectives?'
inquired Challoner.
'Do I propose it? No, sir,' cried Somerset. 'It is reason, destiny, the plain
face of the world, that commands and imposes it. Here all our merits
tell; our manners, habit of the world, powers of conversation, vast
stores of