The Simpkins Plot | Page 9

the ink-bottle off the arm of the chair.
"There," said the Major, "I knew you'd do that."
"Never mind," said Meldon. "I have a pencil in my pocket. I'll work with it."
The Major seized the blotting-paper from his writing-table and went down on his knees on the carpet.
"When you've finished making that mess worse than it is," said Meldon, "and covering your own fingers all over with ink in such a way that it will take days of careful rubbing with pumice-stone to get them clean, perhaps you'll go on telling me why you call this fellow Simpkins a meddlesome ass. I was up early this morning, owing to the baby's being restless during the night. Did I mention to you that she's got whooping-cough? Well, she has, and it takes her in the form of a rapid succession of fits, beginning at 10 p.m. and lasting till eight the next morning. That was what happened last night, so, as you'll readily understand, I want to get to bed in good time to-night. It may, it probably will, take hours to drag your grievance out of you, and I don't see any use in wasting time at the start."
"I paid twenty guineas for that carpet," said the Major. "It's a Persian one."
"Has that anything to do with Simpkins? Did he force you to buy the carpet, or did he try to prevent you?"
"No, he didn't. I wouldn't let the beast inside this house."
"Very well then. Don't go on about the carpet. Tell me plainly and straightforwardly why you call Simpkins a meddlesome ass."
"Because he pokes his nose into everybody's business," said the Major, "and won't let people alone."
Meldon took a note on a sheet of paper.
"Good," he said. "Simpkins--meddlesome ass--pokes his nose into everybody's business. Now, who is everybody?"
"Who is what, J. J.?"
"Who is everybody? That's plain enough, isn't it? For instance, are you everybody?"
"No, I'm not. How could I be?"
"Then I take it that Simpkins has not poked his nose into your business. Is Doyle everybody?"
"He has poked his nose into my business."
"Be careful now, Major. You're beginning to contradict yourself. What business of yours has he poked his nose into? Was it the carpet?"
"No. I told you he had nothing to do with the carpet. He made a beastly fuss about my fishing in the river above the bridge. He threatened to prosecute me."
"He may have been perfectly justified in that," said Meldon. "What right have you to fish in the upper part of the river?"
"I always fished there. I've fished there for thirty years and more."
"These questions of fishing rights," said Meldon, "are often extremely complicated. There may very well be something to be said on both sides. I don't think I can proceed to deal with Simpkins in the way you suggest, unless he has done something worse than interfere with your fishing. What else have you got against him?"
"He tried to stir up the dispensary doctor to prosecute Doyle on account of the insanitary condition of some of his houses."
"I expect he was perfectly right there," said Meldon. "From what I recollect of those houses that Doyle lets I should say that he richly deserves prosecution."
"Nobody was ever ill in the houses," said the Major. "There hasn't been a case of typhoid in the town as long as I can remember."
"That's not the point," said Meldon. "You're looking at the matter in the wrong way altogether. There never is typhoid anywhere until you begin to be sanitary. The absence of typhoid simply goes to show that sanitation has been entirely neglected. That's probably one of Simpkins' strongest points."
"If that's so, we'd be better without sanitation."
"Certainly not," said Meldon. "You might just as well say that we'd be better without matches because children never died of eating the heads off them before they were invented. Which reminds me that I caught the baby in the act of trying to swallow a black-headed pin the other day; and that, of course, would have been a great deal worse than getting whooping-cough. The thing had been stuck into the head of a woolly bear by way of an eye. She pulled it out, which I think shows intelligence, and--"
"I thought you said, J. J., that you wanted to get through with this enquiry and go to bed."
"I do," said Meldon. "But I naturally expected you'd take some interest in the mental development of my baby. After all, she's your godchild. You wouldn't have liked it if she'd swallowed that pin. However, if you don't care to hear about her, I won't force her on your attention. Go on about Doyle and the drains. What happened?"
"The doctor refused to act, of course," said the Major.
"Naturally," said Meldon; "he didn't care about bringing typhoid into the town."
"You'd have thought Simpkins would have