suggesting considerations possibly heretofore overlooked by commentators upon the laws of property
you will find dudley up in what he calls his library,” said mrs albert in the hallway. “i’m so sorry i must go out—but he’ll be glad to see you. and—let me entreat you, don’t give him any encouragement!”
“what!” i cried, “encourage uncle dudley? oh—never, never!”
“no, just be firm with him,” mrs albert went on. “say that it mustn’t be thought of for a moment. and oh—by the way—it’s as well to warn you: don’t ask him what he did it for! it seems that every one asks him that—and he gets quite enraged about it now, when that particular question is put. as like as not he’d throw something at you.” she spoke earnestly, in low, impressive tones.
“wild horses should not drag it from me,” i pledged myself. “i will not encourage him: i will not enrage him; i swear not to ask him what he did it for. but—if you don’t mind—could i, so to speak, bear the shock of learning what it is that he has done?”
“you haven’t heard?” mrs albert asked, glancing up at me, with an astonished face, as i stood on the stairs. when i shook my head, she put out her hand to the latch, and opened the door, as if to heighten the dramatic suspense. then she turned and looked me in the eye with solemn intentness. “what has he done?” she echoed in a hollow voice: “you go upstairs and see!”
the door closed behind her, and i made my way noiselessly, two steps at a time, to the floor above. some vague sense of disaster seemed to brood over the silent, half-lighted stairway and the deserted landing. i knocked at uncle dudley’s door—almost prepared to find my signal unanswered. but no, his voice came back, cheerily enough, and i entered the room.
“oh, it’s you!” said my friend, rising from his chair. “glad to see you,”—and we shook hands. standing thus, i found myself staring into his face with a rude and prolonged fixity of gaze, under which he first smiled—a strange, unwholesome sort of smile—then flushed a little, then scowled and averted his glance.
“great heavens!” i exclaimed at last. “why, man alive, what on earth possessed you to—”
“come now!” broke in uncle dudley, with peremptory sternness. “chuck it!”
“yes—i know”—i stammered haltingly along—“i promised i wouldn’t ask you—but—”
“but the original simian instincts triumph over your resolutions, eh?” said my friend, crustily. “yes, i know. i’ve had pretty nearly a week of it now. that question has been asked me, i estimate, somewhere about six hundred and seventy-eight times since last thursday. it’s only fair to you to tell you that i have registered a vow to hit the next man who asks me that fool of a question—‘what did you do it for?’—straight under his left ear. i probably saved your life by interrupting you.”
though the words were fierce, there was a marked return of geniality in the tone. i took the liberty of putting a hand over uncle dudley’s shoulder, and marching him across to the window.
“let’s have a good look at you,” i said.
“i did it myself; i did it with my little hatchet; i did it because i wanted to; i had a right to do it; i should do it again if the fit struck me——” thus, with mock gravity, uncle dudley ran on as i scrutinised his countenance in the strong light. “and furthermore,” he added, “i don’t care one single hurrah in hades whether you like it or not.”
“i think on the whole,” i mused aloud—“yes, i think i rather do like it—now that i accustom myself to it.”
uncle dudley’s face brightened on the instant. “do you really?” he exclaimed, and beamed upon me. in spite of his professed indifference to my opinion, it was obvious that i had pleased him.
“sit down,” he said—“there are the matches behind you—hope these aren’t too green for you. yes, my boy, i created quite a flutter in the hen-yard, i can tell you. did my sister tell you?—she nearly fainted, and little amy burst out boo-hooing as if she’d lost her last friend. when you come to think of it, old man, it’s really too ridiculous, you know.”
“it certainly has its grotesque aspects,” i admitted.
uncle dudley looked up sharply, as if suspecting some ironical meaning in my words. “you really do think it’s an improvement?” he asked, with a doubtful note in his voice.
“of course, it makes a tremendous change,” i said, diplomatically, “and the novelty tends perhaps to confuse judgment: but i must confess the result is—is, well, very interesting.”
my friend did not look wholly satisfied. “it shows what stupid people we are,” he went on in a dogmatic way. “why, the way they’ve gone on, you’d think i had no property rights in the thing at all—that i was merely a trustee for it—bound to give an account to every tom-dick-and-harry who came along and had nothing better to occupy his mind with. and then that eternal, vacuous, woollen-brained ‘what did you do it for?’ oh, that’s got to be too sickening for words! and the confounded familiarity of the whole thing! why, hang me, if even the little jew cigar dealer down on the corner didn’t feel entitled to pass what he took to be some friendly remarks on the subject. ‘vy,’ he said, ‘if i could say vidout vlattery, vot a haddsobe jeddlebad you ver, and vy did you do dot by yourself?’ it gets on a man’s nerves, you know, things like that.”
“but hasn’t anyone liked the change?” i asked.
uncle dudley sighed. “that’s the worst of it,” he said, dubiously. “only two men have said they liked it—and it happens that they are both persons of conspicuously weak intellect. that’s rather up against me, isn’t it? but on the other hand, you know, people who are silliest about everything else always get credit for knowing the most about art and beauty and all that. perhaps in such a case as this, i daresay their judgment might be better than all the others. and after all, what do i care? that’s the point i make: that it’s my business and nobody else’s. if a man hasn’t got a copyright in his own personal appearance, why there is no such thing as property. but instead of recognising this, any fellow feels free to come up and say: ‘you look like an unfrocked priest,’ or ‘hullo! another burglar out of work,’ and he’s quite surprised if you fail to show that you’re pleased with the genial brilliancy of his remarks. i don’t suppose there is any other single thing which the human race lapses into such rude and insolent meddlesomeness over as it does over this.”
“it is pathetic,” i admitted—“but—but it’ll soon grow again.”
uncle dudley laughed a bitter laugh. “by jove,” he cried, “i’ve more than half a mind not to let it. it would serve ‘em right if i didn’t. why, do you know—you’d hardly believe it! my sister had a dinner party on here for saturday night, and after i’d—i’d done it—she cancelled the invitations—some excuse about a family loss—a bereavement, my boy. well, you know, treatment of that sort puts a man on his mettle. i’m entitled to resent it. and besides—you know—of course it does make a great change—but somehow i fancy that when you get used to it—come now—the straight griffin, as they say—what do you think?”
“i’m on oath not to encourage you,” i made answer.
“there you have it!” cried uncle dudley: “the old tyrannical conspiracy against the unusual, the individual, the true! let nobody dare to be himself! let us have uniformity, if all else perishes. the frames must be alike in the royal academy, that’s the great thing; the pictures don’t matter so much. you see our women-folk now, this very month, getting ready to case themselves in ugly hoops which they hate, at the bidding of they know not whom, because, if they did not, the hideous possibility of one woman being different from another woman would darken the land. a man is not to be permitted the pitiful privilege of seeing his own mouth, not even once in fifteen years, simply because it temporarily inconveniences the multitude in their notions as to how he is in the habit of looking! what rubbish it is!”
“it is rubbish,” i assented—“and you are talking it. your sister who fainted, your niece who wept, your friends who averted their gaze in anguish, the hordes of casual jackasses who asked why you did it, the kindly little jew cigar man who broke forth in lamentations—these are the world’s jury. they have convicted you—sorrowfully but firmly. you yourself, for all your bravado, realise the heinousness of your crime. you are secretly ashamed, remorseful, penitent. i answer for you—you will never do it again.”
“and yet it isn’t such a bad mouth, either,” mused uncle dudley, with a lingering glance at the mirror over the mantel. “there is humour, delicacy of perception, affection, gentleness—ever so many nice qualities about it which were all hidden up before. the world ought to welcome the revelation—and it throws stones instead. ah well!—pass the matches—let us yield gracefully to the inevitable! it shall grow again.”
“mrs albert will be so glad,” i remarked.
