The Man from Brodneys | Page 3

the midst of the island of Japat, it is
eminently wise to make as little as possible of him.
Mr. Skaggs came of a sound old country family in upper England, but
seems to have married a bit above his station. His wife was serving as
governess in the home of a certain earl when Taswell won her heart and
dragged her from the exalted position of minding other people's
children into the less conspicuous one of caring for her own. How the
uncouth country youth--not even a squire--overcame her natural
prejudice against the lower classes is not for me to explain. Sufficient
to announce, they were married and lived unhappily ever afterward.
Their only son was killed by a runaway horse when he was twenty, and
their daughter became the wife of an American named Browne when
she was scarcely out of her teens. It was then that Mr. Skaggs,
practically childless, determined to make himself wifeless as well.

He magnanimously deeded the unentailed farm to his wife, turned his
securities into cash and then set forth upon a voyage of exploration. It
is common history that upon one dark, still night in December he said
good-bye forever to the farm and its mistress; but it is doubtful if either
of them heard him.
To be "jolly well even" with him, Mrs. Skaggs did a most priggish
thing. She died six months later. But, before doing so, she made a will
in which she left the entire estate to her daughter, effectually depriving
the absent husband of any chance to reclaim his own.
Taswell Skaggs was in Shanghai when he heard the news. It was on a
Friday. His informant was that erstwhile friend, Jack Wyckholme.
Naturally, Skaggs felt deeply aggrieved with the fate which permitted
him to capitulate when unconditional surrender was so close at hand.
His language for one brief quarter of an hour did more to upset the
progress of Christian endeavour in the Far East than all the idols in the
Chinese Empire.
"There's nawthin' in England for me, Jackie. My gal's a bloomin'
foreigner by this time and she'll sell the bleedin' farm, of course. She's
an h'American, God bless 'er 'eart. I daresay if I'd go to 'er and say I'd
like my farm back again she'd want to fork hover, but 'er bloody
'usband wouldn't be for that sort of hextravagance. 'E'd boot me off the
hisland."
"The United States isn't an island, Tazzy," explained Mr. Wyckholme,
gulping his brandy and soda.
Mr. Wyckholme was the second son of Sir Somebody-or-other and had
married the vicar's daughter. This put him into such bad odour with his
family that he hurried off to the dogs--and a goodly sized menagerie
besides, if the records of the inebriate's asylum are to be credited. His
wife, after enduring him for sixteen years, secured a divorce. It may not
have been intended as an insult to the scapegoat, but no sooner had she
freed herself from him than his father, Sir Somebody-or-other, took her
and her young daughter into the ancestral halls and gave them a
much-needed abiding-place. This left poor Mr. Jack quite completely

out in the world--and he proceeded to make the best and the worst of it
while he had the strength and ambition. Accepting the world as his
home, he ventured forth to visit every nook and cranny of it. In course
of time he came upon his old-time neighbour and boyhood friend,
Taswell Skaggs, in the city of Shanghai. Neither of them had seen the
British Isles in two years or more.
"'Ow do you know?" demanded Taswell.
"Haven't I been there, old chap? A year or more? It's a rotten big place
where gentlemen aspire to sell gloves and handkerchiefs and
needlework over the shop counters. At any rate, that's what every one
said every one else was doing, and advised me to--to get a situation
doing the same. You know, Tazzy, I couldn't well afford to starve and I
wouldn't sell things, so I came away. But it's no island."
"Well, that's neither here nor there, Jackie. I 'aven't a 'ome and you
'aven't a 'ome, and we're wanderers on the face of the earth. My wife
played me a beastly trick, dying like that. I say marriage is a blooming
nuisance."
"Marriage, my boy, is the convalescence from a love affair. One wants
to get out the worst way but has to stay in till he's jolly well cured. For
my part, I'm never going back to England."
"Nor I. It would be just like me, Jackie, to 'ave a relapse and never get
out again."
The old friends, with tear-dimmed eyes, shook hands and vowed that
nothing short of death should part them during the remainder of their
journey through