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Title: Fiddle o' Dreams and More Author: Arthur Morrison * A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook * eBook No.: 1403441h.html Language: English Date first posted: Jan 2015 Most recent update: Feb 2016 This eBook was produced by Colin Choat and Roy Glashan. Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular paper edition. Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this file. This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html To contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.auGO TO Project Gutenberg Australia HOME PAGE
THERE is a bow-window in the parlour of the Padfield
Arms which gives a view of the village street on one hand and of the open
road and the fields on the other. Either way offers an attractive walk to an
idle man, and I stood in the window in the mood that induces such a man to
toss up for it. But a man may be even too idle to toss up, and it struck me
to leave the decision to two unconscious arbitrators: Dan'l Robgent, who,
with his stick and his rheumatics, was approaching from the village street,
and an unknown bicyclist who was coming up the road from Codham, with many
swerves and wobbles, occasioned by desperate twisting of the neck and staring
at the sky. Dan'l was close, the bicyclist was comparatively far. Which would
pass the window first? With a brisk pedestrian and a cyclist intent on his
journey, a dead-heat would seem likely; but Dan'l's rheumatics and the
cyclist's interest in the heavens introduced factors of uncertainty and gave
the chance a sporting interest.
Dan'l Robgent paused and rubbed his toe tenderly with his stick—he
was losing ground; but after that slight refreshment he came on with quite a
spurt, and the cyclist brought down his gaze and made a wild swerve to save
his balance.
In the end victory lay with the unwitting Dan'l by the mere distance of
the window from the inn-door; for there the two met, and the bicyclist
dismounted to ask Dan'l some question which was ungraciously received.
"No," I heard Dan'l say, very severely, "I hain't seen no
hairyplane, so there!"
The bicyclist grinned.
"All right," he answered. "Keep your hair on, oad 'un! I didn't mean oad
Taff-Pilcher's!"
And with that he turned to his machine and drifted up the village
street.
There were military manoeuvres in this part of Essex, and a rumour had
been heard that aeroplanes were to fly. So that I wondered at Dan'l's
indignation as he came stumping into the parlour, grumbling vaguely. I
ventured a question.
"That young monkey comes from Codham," said Dan'l Robgent, "an' when a
Codham man talks about hairyplanes to a Padfield man it means impidence.
Speeches o' chaff, I s'pose they call it; but I call it impidence, to a man
oad enough to be his father."
I put my stick in a corner and sat down. Dan'l Robgent sat down, too, and
in response to my well-understood signal a mug was planted under his nose ere
he was fully settled. He received the mug with a well-bred affectation of
surprise, as usual, and wished me excellent health.
"Well," I said, "and who is old Taff-Pilcher?"
"Mr. Taff-Pilcher, sir," said Dan'l, with grave reproof, "is
Parlyment candidate for this 'ere division, and a very nice genelman. Them
chaps at Codham don't 'preciate him Codham not bein' in this votin' division
though only three mile off. Mr. Taff-Pilcher looks arter our interests, as is
proper, not the Codham people's; and it's my belief he'll be member after
next election, he's made hisself that popular. And when he is we shall be all
right—them as votes for Mr. Taff-Pilcher, anyway. We shall all get
summat for our votes, we shall; we sha'n't be wheedled out of 'em for nothink
like as what we've bin ever since I had a vote."
"How much are you to get?" I asked.
"'Tain't legal for a genelman to mention the 'zact amount, no more than
it's legal for a genelman to pay it hisself. He's a lawyer, is Mr.
Taff-Pilcher, and he knows the law thorough. I've heard my oad father say in
his time, when the law was different, the price o' votes dropped from a
sovereign to five shillun paid down afore you went in; then it got to half a
crown an' less; an' then nothin' at all. Shameful it was—and has been
all my time. But Mr. Taff-Pilcher's a free-hearted genelman, and he's goin'
to see things put right again; an' as he won't be payin' hisself he ain't
under no temptation to keep it low. And there's goin' to be ashfelt in
Padfield street, and 'lectric light and ping-pong in the workus."
"But what about his aeroplane?"
"Well, 'twasn't 'zactly his, so to speak but one as he wasn't able to
send. You see he's always been special kind and attentive has Mr.
Taff-Pilcher. It was only a accident that he didn't get the Lord Mayor o'
Lunnon hisself down to give away the school prizes an' he's the very best
cricket umpire we ever had on the field here, an' football, too. Fine he is,
straight and fair allus, with just a leetle leanin' towards Padfield,
when it ain't too noticeable. That's what I like to see—a perfeck fair
umpire as won't give it agin his own side if he can help it. That's the sort
we want."
"And Codham doesn't?" I interjected for the rivalry of Padfield and Codham
was intense in cricket and football as in everything else.
"They're jealous; Codhamites allus are. I dunno what they expect; if
they'd got any sense o' fairness they'd see that their votes ain't no
good to him. But it was about the hairyplane I was tellin' you. It was in the
annual sports—you know what a time we have here at Padfield sports
every year. There ain't nothin' like it for miles round, and ain't been since
they stopped Codham Fair. Well, it's wonnerful how Mr. Taff-Pilcher went into
them sports. We made him judge, o' course, seein' how good he was as umpire
an' it paid us. And he helped us wonnerful other ways, too. He didn't pay for
no prizes, you understand, nor subscribe nothin' 'cos that's all agin his
principles. He's very partic'lar about his principles, is Mr. Taff-Pilcher,
an' the one we found out about first was that it's wrong for him to pay out
anything in this 'ere constitooency, bein' a sort o' bribery as he couldn't
stoop to. But lor', you'd never ha' minded if you'd seen him givin' the
prizes away after the sports; you'd ha' believed he'd give the whole lot out
of his own pocket, the handsome way he did it and the generous way he talked.
And it was just the same all through; nobody ever knew before what
unimportant sort o' people the squire and the passon was till they see Mr.
Taff-Pilcher a-puttin' of 'em in the shade at the sports.
"He stuck to his principles about not subscribin' money, but nobody could
call him mean when it was give out he was goin' to send a hairyplane.
Everybody knowed what a expensive thing a hairyplane was, and them chaps as
go up in 'em allus charge about a thousand pound a time. He made a little
speech about it afore the sports began. He said we was livin' in stirrin'
times, and the march o' progress was astonishin' to be'old. He told us that
man, not content with sailin' the stormy deep and travellin' on the firmer
terra cotta, had now took to hisself wings to cleave the infinite expense. He
said that he was proud and happy to say that a hairyplane was on its way to
the spot he loved dearest on earth (meanin' Padfield) at about a hundred an'
fifty mile an hour and conskently might be expected any time in the
arternoon, bein' driv by a most noted flyin' genelman o' the name o' Walker.
If Mr. Walker successfully braved the perils of the windy element, he said,
in his journey from Lunnon, we should hev the glory and delight o' seein' him
come a-swoopin' down in graceful circles like a heagle or a harchangel on to
Padfield. It 'ud be agin his principles he said, to say anythink about the
tremenjus expense o' givin' us sich a treat as that, but he hoped we wouldn't
forget it. And then we cheered terrific, and the sports began.
"All Padfield and half Codham must ha' gone to bed with stiff necks that
night, and I wonder most o' the necks wasn't broke afore they got home. Half
the things in the refreshment tent was ate by boys while the chaps in charge
was starin' up lookin' for the hairyplane. Them as tried to look for the
hairyplane and see the races too got it worst, and you'd think they ought to
ha' broke their necks unanimous. Mr. Taff-Pilcher, he was very eager about
it, too, as you'd expect; but he didn't let it prevent him bein' faithful to
Padfield as judge o' the sports. O' course a judge can't do very much for his
pals, even in a country sports where things ain't done particular; but what
any judge could do Mr. Taff-Pilcher did, and did wonnerful neat, too. In the
final o' the hundred yards' race, when young Bill Parker was comin' up neck
and neck with a Codham chap, Bill bein' on the side nearest the judge, it was
beautiful to see how he changed the tape from his left to his right hand,
just casual like, as he turned round to speak to a committee-man, and just
brought it up agin Bill Parker's chest by about six inches. It was one o' the
good-naturedest things I ever see done. And he was just as thoughtful all
through. I could see it, havin' been in it all when I wasa young man, and
knowed the comfort of havin' a friendly judge when you're a-takin' off for
the long jump, or got a little dab o' cobbler's wax in the spoon in the
egg-and-spoon race. But the Codham chaps took it downright spiteful.
And before we could make up our minds whether to knock him down or tie him
up, he burst into a gabble of explanations.
"Oh, stow the pigeon-English," says Stibbins; "what is it in plain
Whitechapel?"
"Myxomycetes," says Burridge; "protozoa, the lowest form of animal
life—made it synthetically! It's quite a new species,
too—stronger in growth and assimilation than any of 'em, and grows with
the damp of the atmosphere alone. Look here that splash on the glass is
dormant, and ready to throw out spores; but look at this!"
He scraped up a bit with a knife, and put it on a piece o' firewood; and
sure enough it settled down in a sort of blob and then began spreading out
little points very slowly all round.
We watched the points creep out over the wood, hardly moving; and then
Burridge dipped a little glass rod in water and let fall a drop or two in the
wood just by the side of the jelly. The moment it reached the damp it rushed
ahead like one o'clock; ran all along the bit of wood and spread round it,
till it was covered.
"It's eating that wood up," says Burridge and he dropped it into a jar.
Sure enough presently it all sort of melted down in the bottom of the jar and
there was no wood there—one o' the rummest things I ever saw. Creepy,
too, to think that messy stuff was really alive and calmly lunchin' off our
firewood in that gluttonous way.
"It's a most amazingly vigorous species," says Burridge, grinning with
triumph all over. "Nothing like it in the natural protozoa. Anything that's
really wet it gobbles up like lightning. Look at this."
He tore off a bit from a duster, and dipped it in water. Then he picked up
another bit of the jelly on the knife and wiped it on the wet rag. It just
rushed all over that rag, and in two seconds it was another lump of jelly,
which he dropped into the jar on top of the first.
"You see," says Burridge, "in the glass jar it goes dormant. So it would
on metal; it only grows on what it can eat, and it only eats organic matter
or its derivatives. Warmth makes it grow and eat quicker, so does darkness.
Dryness stops most species, and perhaps absolute dryness would stop this; but
as it is, the ordinary moisture of the atmosphere keeps it going, and any
greater moisture—well, you've seen what that does."
We were all standin' round among the bottles and gadgets starin' and
tryin' to think of some way to turn old Burridge's jelly into the merry
ha'pence, when I happened to peep over Crump's shoulder into the outer office
and there saw a lady. I dropped myxomycetes and skipped out for business.
This looked more like progress. The lady was labelled money all over. Real
lace, no less; diamonds at her neck; gold chain-purse in one hand; gold
lorgnette in the other. Not young, no; and a bit severe to look at,
especially when she popped up her gold lorgnette and stared at you through
it.
She came to the point straight away—she was ready to invest in
anything she was satisfied with. What was this? And before I could begin to
explain, there was that oily old flatterer, Bashford Keeble, wagging his
venerable locks on the other side of her, and taking the words out of my
mouth. Stibbins lay low. He was no society ornament, and he had the sense to
know it.
We pointed out the bricks, and old Bashford Keeble began to discourse at
large on bricks as a moral institution. "Bricks, my dear madam," he said;
"bricks produced by this wonderful synthetic process add the advantage of
great commercial possibilities to the universal higher significance of the
brick in general. The thoughtless throng is apt to ignore the moral import of
the brick. The brick in its multitudes gives shelter to the human race,
supports the domestic hearth, has its part in the sanctity of the home. It is
an inspiring thought—"
"Yes, yes," says the lady; "and do these bricks support the domestic
hearth any better than the usual kind?"
"Much," says Keeble; "it's one of their chief recommendations."
"Also," I put in, "the whole scheme is more particularly calculated to
support in opulence the domestic hearths of those investors who come in
privately now—on the ground floor as we say in the City."
"Indeed?" she says; "and how do you make the bricks?"
"By the process invented by our Mr. Burridge, whose name will resound
throughout the ages when Newton's is forgotten. You see, we take hydrated
silica of ammonia and magnesia, and then, combining these ingredients with
calcium, and adding the proper quantity of potash and free silica, we pass
the whole through an intricate process of—er—synthesis, and what
with the synthesis of the combination actin' on the combination of the
synthesis, and the consequent reaction on both—why, there you are,
don't you know!"
"Dear me!" says she, looking hard at me through her lorgnette all the
while. "So much simpler than baking clay! Show me something else!"
Somehow I began to feel that the stroke hadn't quite come off, but I
dashed in on the wood tack.
"Now, this timber," I said, pickin' up the specimen; "we're anticipatin'
an enormous revenue from chemically produced timber. Quite indistinguishable
from the natural article, and free from all knots and defects. Made in any
length to order, at a price beyond the reach of competition with e-normous
profits. To a lady of your educated intelligence, I need scarcely point out
the enormous, the universal demand for timber."
"Timber," says old Keeble, shovin' in his oar from the other side,
"hitherto only to be procured by the barbarous destruction of the fairest
scenes of sylvan delight, will now be supplied to the crying needs of our
fellow-creatures by an inexpensive but moral chemical process, placing it
within the reach of the humblest."
"And what's the inexpensive moral process?" asks Miss Gunter. She had a
way of starin' immovably at you through those frozen glasses all the while
you were speakin' with about as much expression on her face as the back of a
tombstone, and then rappin' out a question like an assegai.
Old Bashford Keeble never could be sure of the scientific patter. He
flourished his hands in a sort of general way and said it was done with
lignum and cellulose, and synthetic combination, and other secret
ingredients.
"Oh!" says the lady, as though she hadn't expected that. "Have you tried
melting down sawdust?"
Poor old Keeble waggled his hands feebly and said it seemed a good idea,
and he'd mention it to the board.
"Do," says Miss Gunter; "it's just the soft of thing that might interest a
board."
Old Keeble and I looked across at each other pretty blank, but to hear her
voice and look at her tombstone face it was hard to believe she was guyin'
us, even now. She reached over and took up the piece of leather.
"And this is the synthetic leather, is it?" she said, turning it over.
"Extraordinarily like the real thing, quite extraordinarily. If you were not
so honest you might safely call it genuine. But it's rather
rudimentary. Why not synthetic boots? You're more advanced with the glass, I
see. Such a convenient shape, isn't it? I suppose you'll soon produce
bottles ready labelled?"
"And with whisky in 'em," I said, with something as near a wink as I
dared. For it was plain now we weren't scorin', and old Keeble was shakin'
his head and waggin' his hands and tryin' to look as though he wasn't
responsible for anything.
"Yes, yes; very profitable to somebody no doubt," says Miss Gunter.
"Where's your works?"
"No works, as yet," I said; "but we've a small laboratory here where Mr.
Burridge works."
It struck me suddenly that we might do something after all, if we could
impress her with the myxomycetes. So I said, very confidentially, "I don't
know if I ought to mention it yet, but as a matter of fact he really
has made the most astounding discovery only just now. He has produced
life by chemical means!"
"Indeed? How wonderful!" says she calm and stony as ever. "Show me. 'Let
us come and see life—by chemical means."
We went into the back room, and she almost seemed to take to old Burridge,
comparatively speaking. He was bubblin' all over still, and he explained all
about myxomycetes and the formic aldehydes and amino acids, and he did the
experiments again with a larger piece of wood and a wet duster. Miss Gunter
was so taken with it she forgot to say anything sarcastic, and old Keeble,
findin' her comin' round a bit on this, butted in again, and poked his
fingers and his whiskers into things and muddled up the explanations, and did
all he could to shove himself in front of poor old Burridge, who was
providin' the show.
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