Beasts and Super-Beasts

by Saki

  THE PHILANTHROPIST AND THE HAPPY CAT

  Jocantha Bessbury was in the mood to be serenely and graciously happy.Her world was a pleasant place, and it was wearing one of its pleasantestaspects. Gregory had managed to get home for a hurried lunch and a smokeafterwards in the little snuggery; the lunch had been a good one, andthere was just time to do justice to the coffee and cigarettes. Bothwere excellent in their way, and Gregory was, in his way, an excellenthusband. Jocantha rather suspected herself of making him a very charmingwife, and more than suspected herself of having a first-rate dressmaker.

  “I don’t suppose a more thoroughly contented personality is to be foundin all Chelsea,” observed Jocantha in allusion to herself; “exceptperhaps Attab,” she continued, glancing towards the large tabby-markedcat that lay in considerable ease in a corner of the divan. “He liesthere, purring and dreaming, shifting his limbs now and then in anecstasy of cushioned comfort. He seems the incarnation of everythingsoft and silky and velvety, without a sharp edge in his composition, adreamer whose philosophy is sleep and let sleep; and then, as eveningdraws on, he goes out into the garden with a red glint in his eyes andslays a drowsy sparrow.”

  “As every pair of sparrows hatches out ten or more young ones in theyear, while their food supply remains stationary, it is just as well thatthe Attabs of the community should have that idea of how to pass anamusing afternoon,” said Gregory. Having delivered himself of this sagecomment he lit another cigarette, bade Jocantha a playfully affectionategood-bye, and departed into the outer world.

  “Remember, dinner’s a wee bit earlier to-night, as we’re going to theHaymarket,” she called after him.

  Left to herself, Jocantha continued the process of looking at her lifewith placid, introspective eyes. If she had not everything she wanted inthis world, at least she was very well pleased with what she had got.She was very well pleased, for instance, with the snuggery, whichcontrived somehow to be cosy and dainty and expensive all at once. Theporcelain was rare and beautiful, the Chinese enamels took on wonderfultints in the firelight, the rugs and hangings led the eye throughsumptuous harmonies of colouring. It was a room in which one might havesuitably entertained an ambassador or an archbishop, but it was also aroom in which one could cut out pictures for a scrap-book without feelingthat one was scandalising the deities of the place with one’s litter.And as with the snuggery, so with the rest of the house, and as with thehouse, so with the other departments of Jocantha’s life; she really hadgood reason for being one of the most contented women in Chelsea.

  From being in a mood of simmering satisfaction with her lot she passed tothe phase of being generously commiserating for those thousands aroundher whose lives and circumstances were dull, cheap, pleasureless, andempty. Work girls, shop assistants and so forth, the class that haveneither the happy-go-lucky freedom of the poor nor the leisured freedomof the rich, came specially within the range of her sympathy. It was sadto think that there were young people who, after a long day’s work, hadto sit alone in chill, dreary bedrooms because they could not afford theprice of a cup of coffee and a sandwich in a restaurant, still less ashilling for a theatre gallery.

  Jocantha’s mind was still dwelling on this theme when she started forthon an afternoon campaign of desultory shopping; it would be rather acomforting thing, she told herself, if she could do something, on thespur of the moment, to bring a gleam of pleasure and interest into thelife of even one or two wistful-hearted, empty-pocketed workers; it wouldadd a good deal to her sense of enjoyment at the theatre that night. Shewould get two upper circle tickets for a popular play, make her way intosome cheap tea-shop, and present the tickets to the first couple ofinteresting work girls with whom she could casually drop intoconversation. She could explain matters by saying that she was unable touse the tickets herself and did not want them to be wasted, and, on theother hand, did not want the trouble of sending them back. On furtherreflection she decided that it might be better to get only one ticket andgive it to some lonely-looking girl sitting eating her frugal meal byherself; the girl might scrape acquaintance with her next-seat neighbourat the theatre and lay the foundations of a lasting friendship.

  With the Fairy Godmother impulse strong upon her, Jocantha marched into aticket agency and selected with immense care an upper circle seat for the“Yellow Peacock,” a play that was attracting a considerable amount ofdiscussion and criticism. Then she went forth in search of a tea-shopand philanthropic adventure, at about the same time that Attab saunteredinto the garden with a mind attuned to sparrow stalking. In a corner ofan A.B.C. shop she found an unoccupied table, whereat she promptlyinstalled herself, impelled by the fact that at the next table wassitting a young girl, rather plain of feature, with tired, listless eyes,and a general air of uncomplaining forlornness. Her dress was of poormaterial, but aimed at being in the fashion, her hair was pretty, and hercomplexion bad; she was finishing a modest meal of tea and scone, and shewas not very different in her way from thousands of other girls who werefinishing, or beginning, or continuing their teas in London tea-shops atthat exact moment. The odds were enormously in favour of the suppositionthat she had never seen the “Yellow Peacock”; obviously she suppliedexcellent material for Jocantha’s first experiment in haphazardbenefaction.

  Jocantha ordered some tea and a muffin, and then turned a friendlyscrutiny on her neighbour with a view to catching her eye. At thatprecise moment the girl’s face lit up with sudden pleasure, her eyessparkled, a flush came into her cheeks, and she looked almost pretty. Ayoung man, whom she greeted with an affectionate “Hullo, Bertie,” came upto her table and took his seat in a chair facing her. Jocantha lookedhard at the new-comer; he was in appearance a few years younger thanherself, very much better looking than Gregory, rather better looking, infact, than any of the young men of her set. She guessed him to be awell-mannered young clerk in some wholesale warehouse, existing andamusing himself as best he might on a tiny salary, and commanding aholiday of about two weeks in the year. He was aware, of course, of hisgood looks, but with the shy self-consciousness of the Anglo-Saxon, notthe blatant complacency of the Latin or Semite. He was obviously onterms of friendly intimacy with the girl he was talking to, probably theywere drifting towards a formal engagement. Jocantha pictured the boy’shome, in a rather narrow circle, with a tiresome mother who always wantedto know how and where he spent his evenings. He would exchange thathumdrum thraldom in due course for a home of his own, dominated by achronic scarcity of pounds, shillings, and pence, and a dearth of most ofthe things that made life attractive or comfortable. Jocantha feltextremely sorry for him. She wondered if he had seen the “YellowPeacock”; the odds were enormously in favour of the supposition that hehad not. The girl had finished her tea and would shortly be going backto her work; when the boy was alone it would be quite easy for Jocanthato say: “My husband has made other arrangements for me this evening;would you care to make use of this ticket, which would otherwise bewasted?” Then she could come there again one afternoon for tea, and, ifshe saw him, ask him how he liked the play. If he was a nice boy andimproved on acquaintance he could be given more theatre tickets, andperhaps asked to come one Sunday to tea at Chelsea. Jocantha made up hermind that he would improve on acquaintance, and that Gregory would likehim, and that the Fairy Godmother business would prove far moreentertaining than she had originally anticipated. The boy was distinctlypresentable; he knew how to brush his hair, which was possibly animitative faculty; he knew what colour of tie suited him, which might beintuition; he was exactly the type that Jocantha admired, which of coursewas accident. Altogether she was rather pleased when the girl looked atthe clock and bade a friendly but hurried farewell to her companion.Bertie nodded “good-bye,” gulped down a mouthful of tea, and thenproduced from his overcoat pocket a paper-covered book, bearing the title“Sepoy and Sahib, a tale of the great Mutiny.”

  The laws of tea-shop etiquette forbid that you should offer theatretickets to a stranger without
having first caught the stranger’s eye. Itis even better if you can ask to have a sugar basin passed to you, havingpreviously concealed the fact that you have a large and well-filled sugarbasin on your own table; this is not difficult to manage, as the printedmenu is generally nearly as large as the table, and can be made to standon end. Jocantha set to work hopefully; she had a long and ratherhigh-pitched discussion with the waitress concerning alleged defects inan altogether blameless muffin, she made loud and plaintive inquiriesabout the tube service to some impossibly remote suburb, she talked withbrilliant insincerity to the tea-shop kitten, and as a last resort sheupset a milk-jug and swore at it daintily. Altogether she attracted agood deal of attention, but never for a moment did she attract theattention of the boy with the beautifully-brushed hair, who was somethousands of miles away in the baking plains of Hindostan, amid desertedbungalows, seething bazaars, and riotous barrack squares, listening tothe throbbing of tom-toms and the distant rattle of musketry.

  Jocantha went back to her house in Chelsea, which struck her for thefirst time as looking dull and over-furnished. She had a resentfulconviction that Gregory would be uninteresting at dinner, and that theplay would be stupid after dinner. On the whole her frame of mind showeda marked divergence from the purring complacency of Attab, who was againcurled up in his corner of the divan with a great peace radiating fromevery curve of his body.

  But then he had killed his sparrow.

  ON APPROVAL

  Of all the genuine Bohemians who strayed from time to time into thewould-be Bohemian circle of the Restaurant Nuremberg, Owl Street, Soho,none was more interesting and more elusive than Gebhard Knopfschrank. Hehad no friends, and though he treated all the restaurant frequenters asacquaintances he never seemed to wish to carry the acquaintanceshipbeyond the door that led into Owl Street and the outer world. He dealtwith them all rather as a market woman might deal with chance passers-by,exhibiting her wares and chattering about the weather and the slacknessof business, occasionally about rheumatism, but never showing a desire topenetrate into their daily lives or to dissect their ambitions.

  He was understood to belong to a family of peasant farmers, somewhere inPomerania; some two years ago, according to all that was known of him, hehad abandoned the labours and responsibilities of swine tending and gooserearing to try his fortune as an artist in London.

  “Why London and not Paris or Munich?” he had been asked by the curious.

  Well, there was a ship that left Stolpmünde for London twice a month,that carried few passengers, but carried them cheaply; the railway faresto Munich or Paris were not cheap. Thus it was that he came to selectLondon as the scene of his great adventure.

  The question that had long and seriously agitated the frequenters of theNuremberg was whether this goose-boy migrant was really a soul-drivengenius, spreading his wings to the light, or merely an enterprising youngman who fancied he could paint and was pardonably anxious to escape fromthe monotony of rye bread diet and the sandy, swine-bestrewn plains ofPomerania. There was reasonable ground for doubt and caution; theartistic groups that foregathered at the little restaurant contained somany young women with short hair and so many young men with long hair,who supposed themselves to be abnormally gifted in the domain of music,poetry, painting, or stagecraft, with little or nothing to support thesupposition, that a self-announced genius of any sort in their midst wasinevitably suspect. On the other hand, there was the ever-imminentdanger of entertaining, and snubbing, an angel unawares. There had beenthe lamentable case of Sledonti, the dramatic poet, who had beenbelittled and cold-shouldered in the Owl Street hall of judgment, and hadbeen afterwards hailed as a master singer by the Grand Duke ConstantineConstantinovitch—“the most educated of the Romanoffs,” according toSylvia Strubble, who spoke rather as one who knew every individual memberof the Russian imperial family; as a matter of fact, she knew a newspapercorrespondent, a young man who ate _bortsch_ with the air of havinginvented it. Sledonti’s “Poems of Death and Passion” were now being soldby the thousand in seven European languages, and were about to betranslated into Syrian, a circumstance which made the discerning criticsof the Nuremberg rather shy of maturing their future judgments toorapidly and too irrevocably.

  As regards Knopfschrank’s work, they did not lack opportunity forinspecting and appraising it. However resolutely he might hold himselfaloof from the social life of his restaurant acquaintances, he was notminded to hide his artistic performances from their inquiring gaze.Every evening, or nearly every evening, at about seven o’clock, he wouldmake his appearance, sit himself down at his accustomed table, throw abulky black portfolio on to the chair opposite him, nod roundindiscriminately at his fellow-guests, and commence the serious businessof eating and drinking. When the coffee stage was reached he would lighta cigarette, draw the portfolio over to him, and begin to rummage amongits contents. With slow deliberation he would select a few of his morerecent studies and sketches, and silently pass them round from table totable, paying especial attention to any new diners who might be present.On the back of each sketch was marked in plain figures the announcement“Price ten shillings.”

  If his work was not obviously stamped with the hall-mark of genius, atany rate it was remarkable for its choice of an unusual and unvaryingtheme. His pictures always represented some well-known street or publicplace in London, fallen into decay and denuded of its human population,in the place of which there roamed a wild fauna, which, from its wealthof exotic species, must have originally escaped from Zoological Gardensand travelling beast shows. “Giraffes drinking at the fountain pools,Trafalgar Square,” was one of the most notable and characteristic of hisstudies, while even more sensational was the gruesome picture of“Vultures attacking dying camel in Upper Berkeley Street.” There werealso photographs of the large canvas on which he had been engaged forsome months, and which he was now endeavouring to sell to someenterprising dealer or adventurous amateur. The subject was “Hyænasasleep in Euston Station,” a composition that left nothing to be desiredin the way of suggesting unfathomed depths of desolation.

  “Of course it may be immensely clever, it may be something epoch-makingin the realm of art,” said Sylvia Strubble to her own particular circleof listeners, “but, on the other hand, it may be merely mad. One mustn’tpay too much attention to the commercial aspect of the case, of course,but still, if some dealer would make a bid for that hyæna picture, oreven for some of the sketches, we should know better how to place the manand his work.”

  “We may all be cursing ourselves one of these days,” said Mrs.Nougat-Jones, “for not having bought up his entire portfolio of sketches.At the same time, when there is so much real talent going about, one doesnot feel like planking down ten shillings for what looks like a bit ofwhimsical oddity. Now that picture that he showed us last week,‘Sand-grouse roosting on the Albert Memorial,’ was very impressive, andof course I could see there was good workmanship in it and breadth oftreatment; but it didn’t in the least convey the Albert Memorial to me,and Sir James Beanquest tells me that sand-grouse don’t roost, they sleepon the ground.”

  Whatever talent or genius the Pomeranian artist might possess, itcertainly failed to receive commercial sanction. The portfolio remainedbulky with unsold sketches, and the “Euston Siesta,” as the wits of theNuremberg nicknamed the large canvas, was still in the market. Theoutward and visible signs of financial embarrassment began to benoticeable; the half-bottle of cheap claret at dinner-time gave way to asmall glass of lager, and this in turn was displaced by water. Theone-and-sixpenny set dinner receded from an everyday event to a Sundayextravagance; on ordinary days the artist contented himself with asevenpenny omelette and some bread and cheese, and there were eveningswhen he did not put in an appearance at all. On the rare occasions whenhe spoke of his own affairs it was observed that he began to talk moreabout Pomerania and less about the great world of art.

  “It is a busy time there now with us,” he said wistfully; “the schwinesare
driven out into the fields after harvest, and must be looked after.I could be helping to look after if I was there. Here it is difficult tolive; art is not appreciate.”

  “Why don’t you go home on a visit?” some one asked tactfully.

  “Ah, it cost money! There is the ship passage to Stolpmünde, and thereis money that I owe at my lodgings. Even here I owe a few schillings.If I could sell some of my sketches—”

  “Perhaps,” suggested Mrs. Nougat-Jones, “if you were to offer them for alittle less, some of us would be glad to buy a few. Ten shillings isalways a consideration, you know, to people who are not over well off.Perhaps if you were to ask six or seven shillings—”

  Once a peasant, always a peasant. The mere suggestion of a bargain to bestruck brought a twinkle of awakened alertness into the artist’s eyes,and hardened the lines of his mouth.

  “Nine schilling nine pence each,” he snapped, and seemed disappointedthat Mrs. Nougat-Jones did not pursue the subject further. He hadevidently expected her to offer seven and fourpence.

  The weeks sped by, and Knopfschrank came more rarely to the restaurant inOwl Street, while his meals on those occasions became more and moremeagre. And then came a triumphal day, when he appeared early in theevening in a high state of elation, and ordered an elaborate meal thatscarcely stopped short of being a banquet. The ordinary resources of thekitchen were supplemented by an imported dish of smoked goosebreast, aPomeranian delicacy that was luckily procurable at a firm of_delikatessen_ merchants in Coventry Street, while a long-necked bottleof Rhine wine gave a finishing touch of festivity and good cheer to thecrowded table.

  “He has evidently sold his masterpiece,” whispered Sylvia Strubble toMrs. Nougat-Jones, who had come in late.

  “Who has bought it?” she whispered back.

  “Don’t know; he hasn’t said anything yet, but it must be some American.Do you see, he has got a little American flag on the dessert dish, and hehas put pennies in the music box three times, once to play the‘Star-spangled Banner,’ then a Sousa march, and then the ‘Star-spangledBanner’ again. It must be an American millionaire, and he’s evidentlygot a very big price for it; he’s just beaming and chuckling withsatisfaction.”

  “We must ask him who has bought it,” said Mrs. Nougat-Jones.

  “Hush! no, don’t. Let’s buy some of his sketches, quick, before we aresupposed to know that he’s famous; otherwise he’ll be doubling theprices. I am so glad he’s had a success at last. I always believed inhim, you know.”

  For the sum of ten shillings each Miss Strubble acquired the drawings ofthe camel dying in Upper Berkeley Street and of the giraffes quenchingtheir thirst in Trafalgar Square; at the same price Mrs. Nougat-Jonessecured the study of roosting sand-grouse. A more ambitious picture,“Wolves and wapiti fighting on the steps of the Athenæum Club,” found apurchaser at fifteen shillings.

  “And now what are your plans?” asked a young man who contributedoccasional paragraphs to an artistic weekly.

  “I go back to Stolpmünde as soon as the ship sails,” said the artist,“and I do not return. Never.”

  “But your work? Your career as painter?”

  “Ah, there is nossing in it. One starves. Till to-day I have sold notone of my sketches. To-night you have bought a few, because I am goingaway from you, but at other times, not one.”

  “But has not some American—?”

  “Ah, the rich American,” chuckled the artist. “God be thanked. He dashhis car right into our herd of schwines as they were being driven out tothe fields. Many of our best schwines he killed, but he paid alldamages. He paid perhaps more than they were worth, many times more thanthey would have fetched in the market after a month of fattening, but hewas in a hurry to get on to Dantzig. When one is in a hurry one must paywhat one is asked. God be thanked for rich Americans, who are always ina hurry to get somewhere else. My father and mother, they have now soplenty of money; they send me some to pay my debts and come home. Istart on Monday for Stolpmünde and I do not come back. Never.”

  “But your picture, the hyænas?”

  “No good. It is too big to carry to Stolpmünde. I burn it.”

  In time he will be forgotten, but at present Knopfschrank is almost assore a subject as Sledonti with some of the frequenters of the NurembergRestaurant, Owl Street, Soho.