Sunny Side (Version 2) — Chapter 5, Part I: Home Notes

THE WAY DOWN

Sydney Smith, or Napoleon or Marcus Aurelius (somebody about that time) said that after ten days any letter would answer itself.

You see what he meant.

Left to itself your invitation from the Duchess to lunch next Tuesday is no longer a matter to worry about by Wednesday morning.

You were either there or not there; it is unnecessary to write now and say that a previous invitation from the Prime Minister--and so on.

It was Napoleon's idea (or Dr. Johnson's or Mark Antony's--one of that circle) that all correspondence can be treated in this manner.

I have followed these early Masters (or whichever one it was) to the best of my ability.

At any given moment in the last few years there have been ten letters that I absolutely _must_ write, thirty which I _ought_ to write, and fifty which any other person in my position _would_ have written.

Probably I have written two.

After all, when your profession is writing, you have some excuse for demanding a change of occupation in your leisure hours.

No doubt if I were a coal-heaver by day, my wife would see to the fire after dinner while I wrote letters.

As it is, she does the correspondence, while I gaze into the fire and think about things.

You will say, no doubt, that this was all very well before the War, but that in the Army a little writing would be a pleasant change after the day's duties.

Allow me to disillusion you.

If, years ago, I had ever conceived a glorious future in which my autograph might be of value to the more promiscuous collectors, that conception has now been shattered.

Four years in the Army has absolutely spoilt the market.

Even were I revered in the year 2000 A. D.

as Shakespeare is revered now, my half-million autographs, scattered so lavishly on charge-sheets, passes, chits, requisitions, indents and applications would keep the price at a dead level of about ten a penny.

No, I have had enough of writing in the Army and I never want to sign my own name again.

"Yours sincerely, Herbert Asquith," "Faithfully yours, J. Jellicoe"--these by all means;

but not my own.

However, I wrote a letter in the third year of the war; it was to the bank.

It informed the Manager that I had arrived in London from France and should be troubling them again shortly, London being to all appearances an expensive place.

It also called attention to my new address--a small furnished flat in which Celia and I could just turn round if we did it separately.

When it was written, then came the question of posting it.

I was all for waiting till the next morning, but Celia explained that there was actually a letterbox on our own floor, twenty yards down the passage.

I took the letter along and dropped it into the slit.

Then a wonderful thing happened.

It went _Flipperty--flipperty--flipperty--flipperty--flipperty-- flipperty--flipperty--flipperty--flipperty--flipperty--FLOP.

_ I listened intently, hoping for more ...

but that was all.

Deeply disappointed that it was over, but absolutely thrilled with my discovery, I hurried back to Celia.

"Any letters you want posted?"

I said in an off-hand way.

"No, thank you," she said.

"Have you written any while we've been here?"

"I don't think I've had anything to write."

"I think," I said reproachfully, "it's quite time you wrote to your--your bank or your mother or somebody."

She looked at me and seemed to be struggling for words.

"I know exactly what you're going to say," I said, "but don't say it;

write a little letter instead."

"Well, as a matter of fact I _must_ just write a note to the laundress."

"To the laundress," I said.

"Of course, just a note."

When it was written I insisted on her coming with me to post it.

With great generosity I allowed her to place it in the slit.

A delightful thing happened.

It went _Flipperty--flipperty--flipperty flipperty--flipperty--flipperty--flipperty--flipperty flipperty--flipperty--FLOP_.

Right down to the letter-box in the hall.

Two flipperties a floor.

(A

simple calculation shows that we are perched on the fifth floor.

I am glad now that we live so high.

It must be very dull to be on the fourth floor with only eight flipperties, unbearable to be on the first with only two.

) "_O-oh!

_ How _fas_-cinating!"

said Celia.

"Now don't you think you ought to write to your mother?"

"Oh, I _must_."

She wrote.

We posted it.

It went.

_Flipperty--flipperty_--However, you know all about that now.

Since this great discovery of mine, life has been a more pleasurable business.

We feel now that there are romantic possibilities about Letters setting forth on their journey from our floor.

To start life with so many flipperties might lead to anything.

Each time that we send a letter off we listen in a tremble of excitement for the final FLOP, and when it comes I think we both feel vaguely that we are still waiting for something.

We are waiting to hear some magic letter go _flipperty--flipperty--flipperty--flipperty_ ...

and behold!

there is no FLOP ...

and still it goes on--_flipperty--flipperty--flipperty--flipperty_--growing fainter in the distance ...

until it arrives at some wonderland of its own.

One day it must happen so.

For we cannot listen always for that FLOP, and hear it always; nothing in this world is as inevitable as that.

One day we shall look at each other with awe in our faces and say, "But it's still flipperting!"

and from that time forward the Hill of Campden will be a place holy and enchanted.

Perhaps on Midsummer Eve-- At any rate I am sure that it is the only way in which to post a letter to Father Christmas.

Well, what I want to say is this: if I have been a bad correspondent in the past I am a good one now; and Celia, who was always a good one, is a better one.

It takes at least ten letters a day to satisfy us, and we prefer to catch ten different posts.

With the ten in your hand together there is always a temptation to waste them in one wild rush of flipperties, all catching each other up.

It would be a great moment, but I do not think we can afford it yet; we must wait until we get more practised at letter-writing.

And even then I am doubtful; for it might be that, lost in the confusion of that one wild rush, the magic letter would start on its way--_flipperty--flipperty_--to the never-land, and we should forever have missed it.

So, friends, acquaintances, yes, and even strangers, I beg you now to give me another chance.

I will answer your letters, how gladly.

I still think that Napoleon (or Canute or the younger Pliny--one of the pre-Raphaelites) took a perfectly correct view of his correspondence ...

but then _he_ never had a letter-box which went _Flipperty--flipperty--flipperty--flipperty flipperty--flipperty--flipperty--flipperty--flipperty flipperty--FLOP.

_ HEAVY WORK

Every now and then doctors slap me about and ask me if I was always as thin as this.

"As thin as what?"

I say with as much dignity as is possible to a man who has had his shirt taken away from him.

"As thin as this," says the doctor, hooking his stethoscope on to one of my ribs, and then going round to the other side to see how I am getting on there.

I am slightly better on the other side, but he runs his pencil up and down me and produces that pleasing noise which small boys get by dragging a stick along railings.

I explain that I was always delicately slender, but that latterly my ribs have been overdoing it.

"You must put on more flesh," he says sternly, running his pencil up and down them again.

(He must have been a great nuisance as a small boy.

) "I will," I say fervently, "I will."

Satisfied by my promise he gives me back my shirt.

But it is not only the doctor who complains; Celia is even more upset by it.

She says tearfully that I remind her of a herring.

Unfortunately she does not like herrings.

It is my hope some day to remind her of a turbot and make her happy.

She, too, has my promise that I will put on flesh.

We had a fortnight's leave a little while ago, which seemed to give me a good opportunity of putting some on.

So we retired to a house in the country where there is a weighing-machine in the bathroom.

We felt that the mere sight of this weighing-machine twice daily would stimulate the gaps between my ribs.

They would realize that they had been brought down there on business.

The first morning I weighed myself just before stepping into the water.

When I got down to breakfast I told Celia the result.

"You _are_ a herring," she said sadly.

"But think what an opportunity it gives me.

If I started the right weight, the rest of the fortnight would be practically wasted.

By the way, the doctor talks about putting on flesh, but he didn't say how much he wanted.

What do you think would be a nice amount?"

"About another stone," said Celia.

"You were just a nice size before the War."

"All right.

Perhaps I had better tell the weighing-machine.

This is a co-operative job; I can't do it all myself."

The next morning I was the same as before, and the next, and the next, and the next.

"Really," said Celia, pathetically, "we might just as well have gone to a house where there wasn't a weighing-machine at all.

I don't believe it's trying.

Are you sure you stand on it long enough?"

"Long enough for me.

It's a bit cold, you know."

"Well, make quite sure to-morrow.

I must have you not quite so herringy."

I made quite sure the next morning.

I had eight stone and a half on the weight part, and the-little-thing-you-move-up-and-down was on the "4" notch, and the bar balanced midway between the top and the bottom.

To have had a crowd in to see would have been quite unnecessary; the whole machine was shouting eight-stone-eleven as loudly as it could.

"I expect it's got used to you," said Celia when I told her the sad state of affairs.

"It likes eight-stone-eleven people."

"We will give it," I said, "one more chance."

Next morning the weights were as I had left them, and I stepped on without much hope, expecting that the bar would come slowly up to its midway position of rest.

To my immense delight, however, it never hesitated but went straight up to the top.

At last I had put on flesh!

Very delicately I moved the-thing-you-move-up-and-down to its next notch.

Still the bar stayed at the top.

I had put on at least another ounce of flesh!

I continued to put on more ounces.

Still the bar remained up!

I was eight-stone-thirteen....

Good heavens, I was eight-stone-fourteen!

I pushed the-thing-you-move-up-and-down back to the zero position, and exchanged the half-stone weight for a stone one.

Excited but a trifle cold, for it was a fresh morning, and the upper part of the window was wide open, I went up from nine stone ounce by ounce....

At nine-stone-twelve I jumped off for a moment and shut the window....

At eleven-stone-eight I had to get off again in order to attend to the bath, which was in danger of overflowing....

At fifteen-stone-eleven the breakfast gong went....

At nineteen-stone-nine I realized that I had overdone it.

However I decided to know the worst.

The worst that the machine could tell me was twenty-stone-seven.

At twenty-stone-seven I left it.

Celia, who had nearly finished breakfast, looked up eagerly as I came in.

"Well?"

she said.

"I am sorry I am late," I apologized, "but I have been putting on flesh."

"Have you really gone up?"

she asked excitedly.

"Yes."

I began mechanically to help myself to porridge, and then stopped.

"No, perhaps not," I said thoughtfully.

"Have you gone up much?"

"Much," I said.

"Quite much."

"How much?

Quick!"

"Celia," I said sadly, "I am twenty-stone-seven.

I may be more; the weighing-machine gave out then."

"Oh, but, darling, that's much too much."

"Still, it's what we came here for," I pointed out.

"No, no bacon, thanks; a small piece of dry toast."

"I suppose the machine couldn't have made a mistake?"

"It seemed very decided about it.

It didn't hesitate at all."

"Just try again after breakfast to make sure."

"Perhaps I'd better try now," I said, getting up, "because if I turned out to be only twenty-stone-six I might venture on a little porridge after all.

I shan't be long."

I went upstairs.

I didn't dare face that weighing-machine in my clothes after the way in which I had already strained it without them.

I took them off hurriedly and stepped on.

To my joy the bar stayed in its downward position.

I took off an ounce ...

then another ounce.

The bar remained down....

At eighteen-stone-two I jumped off for a moment in order to shut the window, which some careless housemaid had opened again....

At twelve-stone-seven I shouted through the door to Celia that I shouldn't be long, and that I should want the porridge after all....

At four-stone-six I said that I had better have an egg or two as well.

At three ounces I stepped off, feeling rather shaken.

* * * * * I have not used the weighing-machine since; partly because I do not believe it is trustworthy, partly because I spent the rest of my leave in bed with a severe cold.

We are now in London again, where I am putting on flesh.

At least the doctor who slapped me about yesterday said that I must, and I promised him that I would.

THE PATRIOT

This is a true story.

Unless you promise to believe me, it is not much good my going on ...

You promise?

Very well.

Years ago I bought a pianola.

I went into the shop to buy a gramophone record, and I came out with a pianola--so golden-tongued was the manager.

You would think that one could then retire into private life for a little, but it is only the beginning.

There is the music-stool to be purchased, the library subscription, the tuner's fee (four visits a year, if you please), the cabinet for the rolls, the man to oil the pedals, the--However, one gets out of the shop at last.

Nor do I regret my venture.

It is common talk that my pianola was the chief thing about me which attracted Celia.

"I _must_ marry a man with a pianola," she said ...

and there was I ...

and here, in fact, we are.

My blessings, then, on the golden tongue of the manager.

Now there is something very charming in a proper modesty about one's attainments, but it is necessary that the attainments should be generally recognized first.

It was admirable in Stephenson to have said (as I am sure he did), when they congratulated him on his first steam-engine, "Tut-tut, it's nothing"; but he could only say this so long as the others were in a position to offer the congratulations.

In order to place you in that position I must let you know how extraordinarily well I played the pianola.

I brought to my interpretation of different Ops an _élan_, a _verve_, a _je ne sais quoi_--and several other French words--which were the astonishment of all who listened to me.

But chiefly I was famous for my playing of one piece: "The Charge of the Uhlans," by Karl Bohm.

Others may have seen Venice by moonlight, or heard the Vicar's daughter recite "Little Jim," but the favoured few who have been present when Bohm and I were collaborating are the ones who have really lived.

Indeed, even the coldest professional critic would have spoken of it as "a noteworthy rendition."

"The Charge of the Uhlans."

If you came to see me, you had to hear it.

As arranged for the pianola, it was marked to be played throughout at a lightning pace and with the loudest pedal on.

So one would play it if one wished to annoy the man in the flat below; but a true musician has, I take it, a higher aim.

I disregarded the "FF.'

s" and the other sign-posts on the way, and gave it my own interpretation.

As played by me, "The Charge of the Uhlans" became a whole battle scene.

Indeed, it was necessary, before I began, that I should turn to my audience and describe the scene to them--in the manner, but not in the words, of a Queen's Hall programme:-- "Er--first of all you hear the cavalry galloping past, and then there's a short hymn before action while they form up, and then comes the charge, and then there's a slow bit while they--er--pick up the wounded, and then they trot slowly back again.

And if you listen carefully to the last bit you'll actually hear the horses limping."

Something like that I would say; and it might happen that an insufferable guest (who never got asked again) would object that the hymn part was unusual in real warfare.

"They sang it in this piece, anyhow," I would say stiffly, and turn my back on him and begin.

But the war put a stop to music, as to many other things.

For years the pianola was not played by either of us.

We had other things to do.

And in our case, curiously enough, absence from the pianola did not make the heart grow fonder.

On the contrary, we seemed to lose our taste for music, and when at last we were restored to our pianola, we found that we had grown out of it.

"It's very ugly," announced Celia.

"We can't help our looks," I said in my grandmother's voice.

"A book-case would be much prettier there."

"But not so tuneful."

"A pianola isn't tuneful if you never play it."

"True," I said.

Celia then became very alluring, and suggested that I might find somebody who would like to be lent a delightful pianola by somebody whose delightful wife had her eye on a delightful bookcase.

"I might," I said.

"Somebody," said Celia, "who isn't supplied with music from below."

I found John.

He was quite pleased with the idea, and promised to return the pianola when he got sick of it.

So on Wednesday it went.

I was not sorry, because in its silence it was far from beautiful, and we wanted another book-case badly.

But on Tuesday evening--its last hours with us--I had to confess to a certain melancholy.

It is sad to part with an old and well-tried friend, particularly when that friend is almost entirely responsible for your marriage.

I looked at the pianola and then I said to Celia, "I must play it once again."

"Please," said Celia.

"The old masterpiece, I suppose?"

I said, as I got it out.

"Do you think you ought to--now?

I don't think I want to hear a charge of the Uhlans--beasts; I want a charge of our own men."

"Art," I said grandly, "knows no frontiers."

I suppose this has been said by several people several times already, but for the moment both Celia and I thought it was rather clever.

So I placed the roll in the pianola, sat down and began to play....

Ah, the dear old tune....

Dash it all!

"What's happened?"

said Celia, breaking a silence which had become alarming.

"I must have put it in wrong," I said.

I wound the roll off, put it in again, and tried a second time, pedalling vigorously.

Dead silence....

Hush!

A note ...

another silence ...

and then another note....

I pedalled through to the end.

About five notes sounded.

"Celia," I said, "this is wonderful."

It really was wonderful.

For the first time in its life my pianola refused to play "The Charge of the Uhlans."

It had played it a hundred times before the War, but now--no!

We had to have a farewell piece.

I put in a waltz, and it played it perfectly.

Then we said good-bye to our pianola, feeling a reverence for it which we had never felt before.

* * * * * You don't believe this?

Yet you promised you would ...

and I still assure you that it is true.

But I admit that the truth is sometimes hard to believe, and the first six persons to whom I told the story assured me frankly that I was a liar.

If one is to be called a liar, one may as well make an effort to deserve the name.

I made an effort, therefore, with the seventh person.

"I put in 'The Charge of the Uhlans,'" I said, "and it played 'God Save the King.'

" Unfortunately he was a very patriotic man, and he believed it.

So that is how the story is now going about.

But you who read this know the real truth of the matter.

A QUESTION OF LIGHT

As soon as Celia had got a cheque-book of her own (and I had explained the mysteries of "---- & Co." to her), she looked round for a safe investment of her balance, which amounted to several pounds.

My offers, first of an old stocking and afterwards of mines, mortgages and aerated breads, were rejected at once.

"I'll leave a little in the bank in case of accidents," she said, "and the rest must go somewhere absolutely safe and earn me five per cent.

Otherwise they shan't have it."

We did what we could for her; we offered the money to archdeacons and other men of pronounced probity; and finally we invested it in the Blanktown Electric Light Company.

Blanktown is not its real name, of course; but I do not like to let out any information which may be of value to Celia's enemies--the wicked ones who are trying to snatch her little fortune from her.

The world, we feel, is a dangerous place for a young woman with money.

"Can't I _possibly_ lose it now?"

she asked.

"Only in two ways," I said.

"Blanktown might disappear in the night, or the inhabitants might give up using electric light."

It seemed safe enough.

At the same time we watched the newspapers anxiously for details of the latest inventions; and anybody who happened to mention when dining with us that he was experimenting with a new and powerful illuminant was handed his hat at once.

You have Blanktown, then, as the depository of Celia's fortune.

Now it comes on the scene in another guise.

I made the announcement with some pride at breakfast yesterday.

"My dear," I said, "I have been asked to deliver a lecture."