XI

  Peter and Paul

  “As I was saying,” the Other Professor resumed, “if you’ll just think over any Poem, that contains the words—such as

  “Peter is poor,” said noble Paul,

  “And I have always been his friend:

  And, though my means to give are small,

  At least I can afford to lend.

  How few, in this cold age of greed,

  Do good, except on selfish grounds!

  But I can feel for Peter’s need,

  And I will lend him fifty pounds!”

  How great was Peter’s joy to find

  His friend in such a genial vein!

  How cheerfully the bond he signed,

  To pay the money back again!

  “We can’t,” said Paul, “be too precise:

  ’Tis best to fix the very day:

  So, by a learned friend’s advice,

  I’ve made it Noon, the Fourth of May.”

  “But this is April!” Peter said.

  “The First of April, as I think.

  Five little weeks will soon be fled:

  One scarcely will have time to wink!

  Give me a year to speculate—

  To buy and sell—to drive a trade—”

  Said Paul “I cannot change the date.

  On May the Fourth it must be paid.”

  “Well, well!” said Peter, with a sigh.

  “Hand me the cash, and I will go.

  I’ll form a Joint-Stock Company,

  And turn an honest pound or so.”

  “I’m grieved,” said Paul, “to seem unkind:

  The money shall of course be lent:

  But, for a week or two, I find

  It will not be convenient.”

  So, week by week, poor Peter came

  And turned in heaviness away;

  For still the answer was the same,

  “I cannot manage it today.”

  And now the April showers were dry—

  The five short weeks were nearly spent—

  Yet still he got the old reply,

  “It is not quite convenient!”

  The Fourth arrived, and punctual Paul

  Came, with his legal friend, at noon.

  “I thought it best,” said he, “to call:

  One cannot settle things too soon.”

  Poor Peter shuddered in despair:

  His flowing locks he wildly tore:

  And very soon his yellow hair

  Was lying all about the floor.

  The legal friend was standing by,

  With sudden pity half unmanned:

  The teardrop trembled in his eye,

  The signed agreement in his hand:

  But when at length the legal soul

  Resumed its customary force,

  “The Law,” he said, “we can’t control:

  Pay, or the Law must take its course!”

  Said Paul, “How bitterly I rue

  That fatal morning when I called!

  Consider, Peter, what you do!

  You won’t be richer when you’re bald!

  Think you, by rending curls away,

  To make your difficulties less?

  Forbear this violence, I pray:

  You do but add to my distress!”

  “Not willingly would I inflict,”

  Said Peter, “on that noble heart

  One needless pang. Yet why so strict?

  Is this to act a friendly part?

  However legal it may be

  To pay what never has been lent,

  This style of business seems to me

  Extremely inconvenient!

  “No Nobleness of soul have I,

  Like some that in this Age are found!”

  (Paul blushed in sheer humility,

  And cast his eyes upon the ground.)

  “This debt will simply swallow all,

  And make my life a life of woe!”

  “Nay, nay, my Peter!” answered Paul.

  “You must not rail on Fortune so!

  “You have enough to eat and drink:

  You are respected in the world:

  And at the barber’s, as I think,

  You often get your whiskers curled.

  Though Nobleness you can’t attain—

  To any very great extent—

  The path of Honesty is plain,

  However inconvenient!”

  “ ’Tis true,” said Peter, “I’m alive:

  I keep my station in the world:

  Once in the week I just contrive

  To get my whiskers oiled and curled.

  But my assets are very low:

  My little income’s overspent:

  To trench on capital, you know,

  Is always inconvenient!”

  “But pay your debts!” cried honest Paul.

  “My gentle Peter, pay your debts!

  What matter if it swallows all

  That you describe as your ‘assets’?

  Already you’re an hour behind:

  Yet Generosity is best.

  It pinches me—but never mind!

  I will not charge you interest!’

  “How good! How great!” poor Peter cried.

  “Yet I must sell my Sunday wig—

  The scarf-pin that has been my pride—

  My grand piano—and my pig!”

  Full soon his property took wings:

  And daily, as each treasure went,

  He sighed to find the state of things

  Grow less and less convenient.

  Weeks grew to months, and months to years:

  Peter was worn to skin and bone:

  And once he even said, with tears,

  “Remember, Paul, that promised Loan!”

  Said Paul “I’ll lend you, when I can,

  All the spare money I have got—

  Ah, Peter, you’re a happy man!

  Yours is an enviable lot!

  “I’m getting stout, as you may see:

  It is but seldom I am well:

  I cannot feel my ancient glee

  In listening to the dinner-bell:

  But you, you gambol like a boy,

  Your figure is so spare and light:

  The dinner-bell’s a note of joy

  To such a healthy appetite!”

  Said Peter “I am well aware

  Mine is a state of happiness:

  And yet how gladly could I spare

  Some of the comforts I possess!

  What you call healthy appetite

  I feel as Hunger’s savage tooth:

  And, when no dinner is in sight,

  The dinner-bell’s a sound of ruth!

  “No scarecrow would accept this coat:

  Such boots as these you seldom see.

  Ah, Paul, a single five-pound-note

  Would make another man of me!”

  Said Paul “It fills me with surprise

  To hear you talk in such a tone:

  I fear you scarcely realise

  The blessings that are all your own!

  “You’re safe from being overfed:

  You’re sweetly picturesque in rags:

  You never know the aching head

  That comes along with moneybags:

  And you have time to cultivate

  That best of qualities, Content—

  For which you’ll find your present state

  Remarkably convenient!”

  Said Peter “Though I cannot sound

  The depths of such a man as you,

  Yet in your character I’ve found

  An inconsistency or two.

  You seem to have long years to spare

  When there’s a promise to fulfil:

  And yet how punctual you were

  In calling with that little bill!”

  “One can’t be too deliberate,”

  Said Paul, “in parting with one’s pelf.

  With bills, as you correctly state,

  I’m punctuality itself.

  A man may surely claim his dues:

  But, when there’s money to be lent,

  A man must be allowed to choose

  Such times as are convenient!”

  It chanced one day, as Peter sat

  Gnawing a crust—his usual meal—

  Paul bustled in to have a chat,

  And grasped his hand with friendly zeal.

  “I knew,” said he, “your frugal ways:

  So, that I might not wound your pride

  By bringing strangers in to gaze,

  I’ve left my legal friend outside!

  “You well remember, I am sure,

  When first your wealth began to go,

  And people sneered at one so poor,

  I never used my Peter so!

  And when you’d lost your little all,

  And found yourself a thing despised,

  I need not ask you to recall

  How tenderly I sympathised!

  “Then the advice I’ve poured on you,

  So full of wisdom and of wit:

  All given gratis, though ’tis true

  I might have fairly charged for it!

  But I refrain from mentioning

  Full many a deed I might relate—

  For boasting is a kind of thing

  That I particularly hate.

  “How vast the total sum appears

  Of all the kindnesses I’ve done,

  From Childhood’s half-forgotten years

  Down to that Loan of April One!

  That Fifty Pounds! You little guessed

  How deep it drained my slender store:

  But there’s a heart within this breast,

  And I will lend you fifty more!”

  “Not so,” was Peter’s mild reply,

  His cheeks all wet with grateful tears:

  “No man recalls, so well as I,

  Your services in bygone years:

  And this new offer, I admit,

  Is very very kindly meant—

  Still, to avail myself of it

  Would not be quite convenient!”

  You’ll see in a moment what the difference is between ‘convenient’ and ‘inconvenient’. You quite understand it now, don’t you?” he added, looking kindly at Bruno, who was sitting, at Sylvie’s side, on the floor.

  “Yes,” said Bruno, very quietly. Such a short speech was very unusual, for him: but just then he seemed, I fancied, a little exhausted. In fact, he climbed up into Sylvie’s lap as he spoke, and rested his head against her shoulder. “What a many verses it was!” he whispered.

  XII

  A Musical Gardener

  The Other Professor regarded him with some anxiety. “The smaller animal ought to go to bed at once,” he said with an air of authority.

  “Why at once?” said the Professor.

  “Because he can’t go at twice,” said the Other Professor.

  The Professor gently clapped his hands. “Isn’t he wonderful!” he said to Sylvie. “Nobody else could have thought of the reason, so quick. Why, of course he can’t go at twice! It would hurt him to be divided.”

  This remark woke up Bruno, suddenly and completely. “I don’t want to be divided,” he said decisively.

  “It does very well on a diagram,” said the Other Professor. “I could show it you in a minute, only the chalk’s a little blunt.”

  “Take care!” Sylvie anxiously exclaimed, as he began, rather clumsily, to point it. “You’ll cut your finger off, if you hold the knife so!”

  “If oo cuts it off, will oo give it to me, please?” Bruno thoughtfully added.

  “It’s like this,” said the Other Professor, hastily drawing a long line upon the black board, and marking the letters “A”, “B”, at the two ends, and “C” in the middle: “let me explain it to you. If AB were to be divided into two parts at C—”

  “It would be drownded,” Bruno pronounced confidently.

  The Other Professor gasped. “What would be drownded?”

  “Why the bumblebee, of course!” said Bruno. “And the two bits would sink down in the sea!”

  Here the Professor interfered, as the Other Professor was evidently too much puzzled to go on with his diagram.

  “When I said it would hurt him, I was merely referring to the action of the nerves—”

  The Other Professor brightened up in a moment. “The action of the nerves,” he began eagerly, “is curiously slow in some people. I had a friend, once, that, if you burnt him with a red-hot poker, it would take years and years before he felt it!”

  “And if you only pinched him?” queried Sylvie.

  “Then it would take ever so much longer, of course. In fact, I doubt if the man himself would ever feel it, at all. His grandchildren might.”

  “I wouldn’t like to be the grandchild of a pinched grandfather, would you, Mister Sir?” Bruno whispered. “It might come just when you wanted to be happy!”

  That would be awkward, I admitted, taking it quite as a matter of course that he had so suddenly caught sight of me. “But don’t you always want to be happy, Bruno?”

  “Not always,” Bruno said thoughtfully. “Sometimes, when I’s too happy, I wants to be a little miserable. Then I just tell Sylvie about it, oo know, and Sylvie sets me some lessons. Then it’s all right.”

  “I’m sorry you don’t like lessons,” I said. “You should copy Sylvie. She’s always as busy as the day is long!”

  “Well, so am I!” said Bruno.

  “No, no!” Sylvie corrected him. “You’re as busy as the day is short!”

  “Well, what’s the difference?” Bruno asked. “Mister Sir, isn’t the day as short as it’s long? I mean, isn’t it the same length?”

  Never having considered the question in this light, I suggested that they had better ask the Professor; and they ran off in a moment to appeal to their old friend. The Professor left off polishing his spectacles to consider. “My dears,” he said after a minute, “the day is the same length as anything that is the same length as it.” And he resumed his neverending task of polishing.

  The children returned, slowly and thoughtfully, to report his answer. “Isn’t he wise?” Sylvie asked in an awestruck whisper. “If I was as wise as that, I should have a headache all day long. I know I should!”

  “You appear to be talking to somebody—that isn’t here,” the Professor said, turning round to the children. “Who is it?”

  Bruno looked puzzled. “I never talks to nobody when he isn’t here!” he replied. “It isn’t good manners. Oo should always wait till he comes, before oo talks to him!”

  The Professor looked anxiously in my direction, and seemed to look through and through me without seeing me. “Then who are you talking to?” he said. “There isn’t anybody here, you know, except the Other Professor—and he isn’t here!” he added wildly, turning round and round like a teetotum. “Children! Help to look for him! Quick! He’s got lost again!”

  The children were on their feet in a moment.

  “Where shall we look?” said Sylvie.

  “Anywhere!” shouted the excited Professor. “Only be quick about it!” And he began trotting round and round the room, lifting up the chairs, and shaking them.

  Bruno took a very small book out of the bookcase, opened it, and shook it in imitation of the Professor. “He isn’t here,” he said.

  “He can’t be there, Bruno!” Sylvie said indignantly.

  “Course he can’t!” said Bruno. “I should have shooked him out, if he’d been in there!”

  “Has he ever been lost before?” Sylvie enquired, turning up a corner of the hearthrug, and peeping under it.

  “Once before,” said the Professor: “he once lost himself in a wood—”