War-time Silhouettes

War-time Silhouettes

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Title: War-time Silhouettes
Author: Stephen Hudson
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WAR-TIME SILHOUETTES
BY
STEPHEN HUDSON

CONTENTS
I. MR. REISS'S FINAL GRIEVANCE
II. IN THE TRUE INTEREST OF THE NATION
III. WAR WORK
IV. BUSINESS IS BUSINESS
V. "BOBBY"
VI. A WAR VICTIM
VII. DULCE ET DECORUM

MR. REISS'S FINAL GRIEVANCE

WAR-TIME SILHOUETTES
I
MR. REISS'S FINAL GRIEVANCE
Mr. Adolf Reiss, merchant, sits alone on a gloomy December afternoon.
He gazes into the fire with jaundiced eyes reflecting on his grievance
against Life. The room is furnished expensively but arranged without
taste, and it completely lacks home atmosphere. Mr. Reiss's room is,
like himself, uncomfortable. The walls are covered with pictures, but
their effect is unpleasing; perhaps this is because they were bought by
him as reputed bargains, sometimes at forced sales of bankrupt
acquaintances Making and thinking about money has not left Mr. Reiss
time to consider comfort, but for Art, in the form of pictures and other

saleable commodities, he has a certain respect. Such things if bought
judiciously have been known to increase in value in the most
extraordinary manner, and as this generally happens long after their
creators are dead, he leaves living artists severely alone. The essence of
successful speculation is to limit your liability.
Mr. Reiss is a short, stoutish, ungainly man past seventy, and he suffers
from chronic indigestion. He is one of those people of whom it is
difficult to believe that they ever were young.
But it is not on account of these disadvantages that Mr. Reiss considers
himself ill treated by Fate. It is because since the War he regards
himself as a ruined man. Half his fortune remains; but Mr. Reiss,
though he hates the rich, despises the merely well-off. Of a man whose
income would generally be considered wealth he says, "Bah! He hasn't
a penny." Below this level every one is "a pauper"; now he rather
envies such pitiable people because "they've got nothing to lose." His
philosophy of life is simple to grasp, and he can never understand why
so many people refuse to accept it. If they did, he thinks that the world
would not be such an unpleasant place to live in. Life in his opinion is
simply a fight for money. All the trouble in the world is caused by the
want of it, all the happiness man requires can be purchased with it.
Those who think the contrary are fools, and if they go to the length of
professing indifference to money they are "humbugs."
"Humbug" and "Bunkum" are favourite words of his. He generally
dismisses remarks and stops discussion by the use of either or both. His
solitary term of praise is the word "respectable" and he uses it sparingly,
being as far as he can conscientiously go in approval of any one; he
thus eulogizes those who live within their means and have never been
known to be hard up. People who are hard up are "wasters." No one has
any business to be hard up; "respectable" men live on what they've got.
If any one were to ask him how people are to live within their means
when they've not got any, he would reply with the word "bunkum" and
clinch the argument with a grunt. It will be understood that
conversation with Mr. Adolf Reiss is not easy.
* * * * *
A knock on the door. Mr. Reiss's servant announces some one and
withdraws.
Intuitively Mr. Reiss, who is rather deaf, and has not caught