On the other hand, Teddy Mills had a wife, who was very intractable material indeed. Sotcher’s impassioned teachings, received with enthusiasm by Teddy Mills, brought from Mrs. Mills no better tribute than a sniff of contempt; and the lady’s opinion of Sotcher himself, wholly unfavorable, she expressed with much freedom and no politeness. And so it came about that, from the day of Sotcher’s appearance, things went less smoothly in the Mills household. Teddy Mills’s time soon seemed to be divided between listening to Sotcher and quarrelling with Mrs. Mills, so that very little was left for mere business, and the making and mending of shoes became more and more a theory of yesterday and to-morrow, and less and less a practice of to-day.
“Well,” Mrs. Mills would say, appearing suddenly with a red face and tucked-up skirts after a day’s washing, “I’ve done my day’s work, ‘cept clearin’ up. ‘Ow much ‘a’ you done?”
“I’ve done more’n you think,” her husband would reply, with evasive dignity.
“Yes, that you ‘ave, if you’ve done anythink but sit an’ jaw along o’ that dirty greasy spongin’ thief Sotcher. I ‘card ‘im. I ‘card ‘im tellin’ you to do away with the p’lice. You’d look fine doin’ away with the p’lice, you would! You’ll do away with me, if there’s much more of it! ‘Ow long am I to keep this place goin’ like this?”
“When the social revolution comes,” Teddy Mills explained, “we sha’n’t neither of us ‘ave to work more’n an hour or two a day, ‘cos everybody’ll ‘ave to work.”
“An hour or two! Ho! An’ ‘ow’s this place to be kep’ clean an’ food cooked an’ all in an hour or two! But p’raps a woman’s work don’t count. An hour or two, says you! An’ ‘ow’ll your dear friend Sotcher like it, I wonder? A ‘ole hour! Did ‘e ever do an hour’s work in ‘is life?”
“Mr. Scotcher’s a speaker, I tell you, a pioneer — one as teaches the propaganda—”
“Proper what? Gander? It’s a proper goose ‘e teaches when ‘e comes ‘ere a-preachin’ to you! With ‘is free this an’ free that, an’ free drinks between whiles! I ain’t a-goin’ to stand it much longer, so I tell you! I ain’t a-goin’ to work ‘ere for you an’ ‘im too, on nothink. I can earn my livin’ alone, I can, an’ I will, if there ain’t a change!”
Mrs. Mills tried Sotcher with direct personal insult, but that had no better effect than to turn his unceasing discourse to the denunciation of marriage as an oppressive and inconvenient institution, which should shortly be abolished, with the police, the magistracy, and every other relic of privileged authority, temporal and spiritual. On her part, Teddy’s wife grew more urgently bitter as the days went.
And so it came to pass that one fine morning Sotcher arrived at the gate of Mills’s front garden to find Teddy standing by the post, clutching at his touzled hair perplexedly, and staring gloomily up the street.
“She’s gone,” he reported briefly.
“Gone where?” asked the visitor, gazing up the street also, and seeing nothing.
“I dunno,” replied Teddy. “She’s hooked it, that’s all. I did a bit o’ work last night, an’ took it ‘orne this mornin’; an’ when I carne back there was this on the table.”
He extended a crumpled scrap of paper, on which Sotcher read the scrawl: “Good bye, I’m agoing to work for myself now.”
“Selfishness,” commented Sotcher. “The selfishness prevailent at the present time is due to the rotten state of s’ciety an’ the oppression o’ the privileged classes. When we ‘ave the social revolution, an’ free an’ absolute liberty o’ the individual, then selfishness ‘ll be swep’ out o’ the world.”
“Yes,” answered Teddy blankly, “but what — what am I a-goin’ to do till it is?”
“Wave aloft the banner o’ free an’ unrestricted brotherhood and liberty in the face o’ the bloated circles o’ class an’ capitalistic privilege,” replied Sotcher, with the fluency of a fresh-oiled machine.
“What?”
“‘I said we’d raise our free ‘ands an’ voices in the sacred cause o’ universal anarchy an’ proudly march in the van of progress to the glorious consummation o’ the social upheaval,” Sotcher continued, knowing that one sentence meant as much as the other, and airing them, therefore, in turn.
“Yes — jesso,” replied Teddy Mills, turning his uneasy glance toward the little front door; “but what about the washin’?”
Sotcher’s eloquence was not to be turned aside. “Comrades with a glorious mission like us,” he pursued, “can’t waste time over washin’. I don’t.” The truth of this remark was visible to the naked eye. “We fix our eyes forward and up’ard, trampling under the feet of free initiative the relics of barbarous authority, an’ overthrowin’ the bloodstained temples of capitalistic monopoly!”
“Yes, I know,” responded Teddy; “but when I said washin’, I wasn’t thinkin’ so much of our washin’. She’s bin takin’ in washin’ lately, an’ earnin’ a bit, an’ I shall miss it.”
This was a more serious matter, and Sotcher paused thoughtfully. He considered the situation for a moment, and then produced a brilliant project.
“Comrade Mills!” he said, lifting and exhibiting to Teddy’s gaze the palm of a very grubby hand, “this is an ‘istoric moment!”
“Is it?” asked Teddy innocently.
“It is. It’s lucky your wife’s gone, an’ so put the scheme into my ‘ead. We don’t want ‘er. We’ll found the first real Anarchist colony!”
“Yes?” said Teddy interrogatively.
“That ‘amble ‘orne o’ yours,” proceeded Sotcher, “will be ‘anded down the ages on golden trumpets, an’ inscribed on the ‘arts of generations to come. We’ll begin the social revolution there!”
“All right,” assented Teddy. So complete was his belief in Sotcher, that if the proposal had been to redistribute the solar system there he would have said “All right,” just the same.
“We’ll bring in one or two comrades an’ live together in the full brother’ood of anarchy, an’ give a example to the toilin’ millions about us. We’ll ‘ave perfect individual freedom an’ voluntary co-operation, an’ the ‘ole world’ll take a lesson by us an’ bust out in the glorious daybreak of Universal Autonomy!”
“All right,” said Teddy, again.
II
SOTCHER invited the co-operation of two more comrades, and he did not bring them from the Anarchist Club. Four he judged a convenient total number, since the house had four rooms, and he did not bring the two new comrades from the club, because he knew the club of old. There they were all talkers as fluent as himself, and not listeners. Sotcher wanted listeners. It was for that reason — partly — that he sallied forth “spreading the light;” for that, and because the Anarchist Club was the very worst place he knew for borrowing in.
So he brought fresh material. He brought one Billy Snider, a furtive person with an elusive squint and a curious property of looking smaller than he really was, though he was not large at best. Billy Snider, it seemed, was an “individual expropriator.” for years in the matter of private property he had been putting Anarchistic principles into practice without knowing it, and the bloated bourgeois called him a thief. He had derived a great deal of consolation and surprise from the discovery, drawn from Sotcher’s discourse, that he was in reality a pioneer of human regeneration, working to an heroic purpose.
Sotcher also brought a certain Joe Budd, a very large man of much muscular development, with a face like knotted timber and a black eye that was sometimes the right and sometimes the left, and occasionally double, but always there. Mr. Budd was not understood to be partial to any particular profession, and the beer required for his sustenance had hitherto been chiefly contributed by friends who preferred to see him in a good temper. Sotcher had laid his account with care, for if Teddy Mills would work at his trade and Billy Snider “expropriate” out of doors for the benefit of the community, while Joe Budd kept off inconvenient interference, and terrorized such persons as broker�
��s men, then Sotcher, for his part, was ready to supply all the talk the enterprise might require.
It was a great occasion for Sotcher, when the four assembled that evening, and he for the first time addressed a group that was all his own.
“Comrades!” he cried, with a sweep of the arm that might have included a thousand, “we are ‘ere to open, to inaugurate, or as I may say to begin, the Social Revolution! In this ‘ere ‘umble ‘orne we are to set rollin’ the ball that shall pave the way for the up’eaval of ‘umanity, and, spreadin’ its wings to the uttermost ends of the earth, write its name in letters of fire across the ‘eavens! The only law an’ order for free men is Anarchy! We shall live ‘ere, comrades, in perfeck freedom under a brotherly compact that won’t bind nobody. We shall set a example o’ free life, with no law an’ no authority, as ‘ll open the eyes o’ the toilin’ proletariat an’ stir them to copy our noble proceedin’s, an’ go on to overthrow the p’lice an’ the gover’ment, an’ the water-rates an’ all the disgustin’ machinery of organized oppression!”
“‘Ear, ‘ear!” cried Teddy Mills.
“Our watchword shall be liberty, an’ down with privilege an’ monopoly. What is liberty, my comrades? Is it magistrates, an’ prisons, ‘an p’lice at the corner of every street?”
“No!” interjected Billy Snider fervently.
“It is not, comrades. The police is the protector of the real criminals, the plunderin’ so-called upper classes! Stands to reason no honest man would want pertectin’ by p’lice. P’lice is brute force — the brute force as the privileged classes is ‘edged theirselves in with; paid myrmidons makin’ slaves o’ the people. We don’t want no myrmidons, do we?” (“No!” again from Billy). “O’ course not. We’d disdain to be seen speakin’ to ‘em. Very well, then, what does anybody else want with ‘em? What but privilege an’ monopoly? We will break down all privilege an’ monopoly! Our comrade ‘ere, our comrade Billy Snider, has been breakin’ down monopolies for years. Not on a grand scale, p’raps, but wherever ‘e could in a small way, an’ ‘e’s suffered for it. In fact ‘e’s not long out from six months for breakin’ down some bloated capitalist’s monopoly of a gold watch an’ chain. It’s property as is the real robbery, an’ all expropriators are our brothers. We now begin the social revolution, comrades. Liberty for all, voluntary co-operation, free initiative, free contrack, subject to perpetual change an’ revision, do what you like an’ take what you want — them’s our principles, an’ our only law is that there is no laws. I ‘ave ‘ere a box which will ‘old the money of the community, an’ I begin by offerin’ it to comrade Mills, who will ‘ave the honor o’ bein’ the first to give up ‘is private ownership, an’ placin’ whatever money ‘e ‘as in the funds of the group.”
Teddy Mills, amid encouraging murmurs, dropped into the box the sum of sixteen shillings and sevenpence; a large part of it would be due, next Monday, for rent, but a week’s rent is not a thing to bother about when you are starting a revolution.
Billy Snider’s contribution was rather less, and Joe Budd was discovered to have suddenly fallen asleep. Being with much difficulty aroused he promised to see about it to-morrow; and, showing signs of unpleasant irritation, was allowed to lapse into slumber once more. Sotcher produced a sixpence and three pennies with much solemnity.
“I ain’t so fortunate as you, comrades,” he explained, “in bein’ able to contribute quite so liberal, but sich as it is it is my all, an’ give freely. All the more credit to me, p’raps you’ll say, comrades, but no — I don’t claim no more merit than anybody else ‘ere. There it is, give freely. Doubts ‘ave been cast on the tanner, though only by slaves of the capitalist, sich as barmen. This is our capital, comrades, in this ‘ere box, an’ all money as comes in goes to it; an’ what anybody wants he takes. We won’t vote, for majority tyranny is the worst of all tyrannies, but I suggest we begin by gettin’ in a little beer.”
The suggestion was agreed to, and with the advent of the beer, Joe Budd’s nap terminated with as much suddenness as it had begun. “I like your speechmakin’,” observed Billy Snider, over the beer, to Sotcher. “You put it fust rate. That about monopolies, you know. That’s my principles, but I couldn’t ha’ put it so ‘andsome. An’ that about free contrack, too, an’ changin’ your mind when you like.”
“One o’ the first principles of Anarchy,” remarked Sotcher. “Free contrack between man an’ man, perpetual subjeck to revision an’ cancellation. It is forbidden now by the rule of the brutal majority.”
“Yes — I know that,” observed Snider, “an I’ve suffered for it. I went a-bookmakin’ once, to Alexander’s Park Races. I did very well an’ made a ‘ole lot o’ contracks, layin’ the odds; but when I’d got my satchel pretty full o’ the backers’ money, an’ they was lookin’ at the ‘orses, an’ I ‘ad time to think things over, why, I changed my mind about the contracks, same as anybody might do, an’ started to go ‘orne. Why not? But the brutal majority treated me shameful. Chucked me into a pond, they did, an’ I ‘adn’t got more’n about a quarter of a suit o’ clothes to go ‘orne in.”
“All owin’ to the rotten system o’ s’ciety,” commented Sotcher. “The rule o’ the majority’s just as bad as any other rule; but there’s to be no rule an’ no majority now — no commerce an’ profit-huntin’; free exchange, free everything!”
“That’s what I’ve been lookin’ for for a long time,” said Joe Budd fervently, and finished his pot.
It is impossible to set going an entirely new system of life without a little friction, and the friction began at bed-time. There was only one bed in the place, and Billy Snider, having with much foresight discovered this fact in time, went to bed first, unostentatiously. When this treachery became apparent, Joe Budd’s righteous indignation was worthy of the occasion. He took the slumbering betrayer of the rights of man by a leg and an arm, and hauled him out on the floor.
“D’ye call this equal rights,” he demanded. “You sleepin’ comf’table in a bed, an’ us on the floor? Ought to be ashamed o’ yerself. You ain’t got no more rights in that bed than we’ave; ‘an as I pulled you out I’m goin’ to sleep in it.” Which he did.
In the morning it was perceived that Billy Snider had risen early and gone out.
“Gone on a job,” commented Sotcher. “Hope he’ll bring back something good.”
At this moment Joe Budd, whose hand had strayed carelessly over the edge of the money-box as it lay on its shelf, uttered a gasp, and pulled down the box bodily. It was empty Joe Budd’s opinion of Billy Snider when he pulled him out of bed was mere flattery to the opinion he expressed now. He kept at it so long that at length Teddy Mills took up a pair of boots that were partly mended and set to work to finish them. The sight of Teddy’s industry somewhat calmed Joe, and presently he asked: “How long ‘ll you be getting them done?”
“Not more’n a quarter of an hour,” Teddy estimated.
“Right,” returned Joe, sitting down and feeling for his pipe. “I’ll take ‘em ‘orne for you.”
But here Sotcher interposed. “Don’t you bother, comrade,” he said; “they mightn’t know you. I’ll take ‘em ‘orne.”
“No,” replied Joe, taking his pipe from his mouth and looking very squarely into Sotcher’s eyes. “I bet you won’t.”
Sotcher let it stand at that, and resigned himself to watch Teddy’s work. When it was done, and the largest sum that could possibly be charged was decided on, Joe Budd was given precise directions to find the chandler’s shop where the boots were due, and departed with them under his arm.
“Comrade Joe Budd,” observed Sotcher, gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling, “is a noble soul, as every friend o’ the social revolution must be. But from the point o’ view o’ the group, p’raps it’s a pity ‘e took them boots ‘orne.”
“Why,” asked Teddy, “‘e won’t stick to the money, will ‘e?”
“Stick to it? No — not stick to it; not stick to it long, anyway. But ‘e’
s a noble, impulsive soul, an’ liable to get thirsty very sudden. An’ ‘e deals very free an’ large, as regards thirst.”
But Mr. Budd’s thirst was destined to be unrelieved as yet. In five minutes he burst into the room in a state of exacerbated ill-temper, and exhibited strong signs of a desire to catch Teddy Mills by the throat. Teddy took up a position behind a table, with dodging-room on either hand.
“What d’ye mean?” demanded Joe Budd. “What d’ye mean by sendin’ me out for nothin’? The chap at the chandler’s shop’s been an’ took it off your bill, an’ ‘e says you owe ‘im one ‘an ninepence ha’penny besides!”
“Does ‘e?” Teddy answered blankly. “It’s very likely. My wife used to run a bill with ‘im, but I didn’t know ‘ow it stood.”
Here Mr. Budd was aware of something very like a chuckle from Sotcher.
“What?” he exclaimed, turning his wrath in a new direction; “laughin’, was ye? Laughin’ at me? Call that liberty, I s’pose? All right — gimme that ‘at.”
Sotcher’s hat was a sad thing, but he wore it indoors and out as an expression of contempt for social forms. Joe Budd snatched it from his head, and drove out the dent in the crown with a punch of his fist.
“You take a liberty with me,” he said, “an’ I’ll take one with you — that’s equal rights. I’ll expropriate this ‘ere ‘at, an’ swop it for the clock on the mantelpiece — that’s free exchange; and if I ‘ave any o’ your lip you’ll get a free punch on the nose!”
And therewith, carrying the clock under his arm, Mr. Joe Budd walked out for the day.
It was a dull day’s work for Teddy Mills, spite of Sotcher’s eloquence. Sotcher explained that little difficulties were inevitable in the early stages of so glorious an undertaking as theirs, but that things would go more smoothly every hour. Late in the evening Joc Budd returned, very red in the face, a trifle thick in the voice, but noisy and argumentative withal.
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 254