Beasts and Super Beasts

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"If it was anxious to go," said Adela Pingsford rather angrily, "I should
not have come here to chat with you about it. I'm practically all alone;
the housemaid is having her afternoon out and the cook is lying down with
an attack of neuralgia. Anything that I may have learned at school or in
after life about how to remove a large ox from a small garden seems to
have escaped from my memory now. All I could think of was that you were
a near neighbour and a cattle painter, presumably more or less familiar
with the subjects that you painted, and that you might be of some slight
assistance. Possibly I was mistaken."

"I paint dairy cows, certainly," admitted Eshley, "but I cannot claim to
have had any experience in rounding-up stray oxen. I've seen it done on
a cinema film, of course, but there were always horses and lots of other
accessories; besides, one never knows how much of those pictures are
faked."

Adela Pingsford said nothing, but led the way to her garden. It was
normally a fair-sized garden, but it looked small in comparison with the
ox, a huge mottled brute, dull red about the head and shoulders, passing
to dirty white on the flanks and hind-quarters, with shaggy ears and
large blood-shot eyes. It bore about as much resemblance to the dainty
paddock heifers that Eshley was accustomed to paint as the chief of a
Kurdish nomad clan would to a Japanese tea-shop girl. Eshley stood very
near the gate while he studied the animal's appearance and demeanour.
Adela Pingsford continued to say nothing.

"It's eating a chrysanthemum," said Eshley at last, when the silence had
become unbearable.

"How observant you are," said Adela bitterly. "You seem to notice
everything. As a matter of fact, it has got six chrysanthemums in its
mouth at the present moment."

The necessity for doing something was becoming imperative. Eshley took a
step or two in the direction of the animal, clapped his hands, and made
noises of the "Hish" and "Shoo" variety. If the ox heard them it gave no
outward indication of the fact.

"If any hens should ever stray into my garden," said Adela, "I should
certainly send for you to frighten them out. You 'shoo' beautifully.
Meanwhile, do you mind trying to drive that ox away? That is a
_Mademoiselle Louise Bichot_ that he's begun on now," she added in icy
calm, as a glowing orange head was crushed into the huge munching mouth.

"Since you have been so frank about the variety of the chrysanthemum,"
said Eshley, "I don't mind telling you that this is an Ayrshire ox."

The icy calm broke down; Adela Pingsford used language that sent the
artist instinctively a few feet nearer to the ox. He picked up a pea-
stick and flung it with some determination against the animal's mottled
flanks. The operation of mashing _Mademoiselle Louise Bichot_ into a
petal salad was suspended for a long moment, while the ox gazed with
concentrated inquiry at the stick-thrower. Adela gazed with equal
concentration and more obvious hostility at the same focus. As the beast
neither lowered its head nor stamped its feet Eshley ventured on another
javelin exercise with another pea-stick. The ox seemed to realise at
once that it was to go; it gave a hurried final pluck at the bed where
the chrysanthemums had been, and strode swiftly up the garden. Eshley
ran to head it towards the gate, but only succeeded in quickening its
pace from a walk to a lumbering trot. With an air of inquiry, but with
no real hesitation, it crossed the tiny strip of turf that the charitable
called the croquet lawn, and pushed its way through the open French
window into the morning-room. Some chrysanthemums and other autumn
herbage stood about the room in vases, and the animal resumed its
browsing operations; all the same, Eshley fancied that the beginnings of
a hunted look had come into its eyes, a look that counselled respect. He
discontinued his attempt to interfere with its choice of surroundings.

"Mr. Eshley," said Adela in a shaking voice, "I asked you to drive that
beast out of my garden, but I did not ask you to drive it into my house.
If I must have it anywhere on the premises I prefer the garden to the
morning-room."

"Cattle drives are not in my line," said Eshley; "if I remember I told
you so at the outset." "I quite agree," retorted the lady, "painting
pretty pictures of pretty little cows is what you're suited for. Perhaps
you'd like to do a nice sketch of that ox making itself at home in my
morning-room?"

This time it seemed as if the worm had turned; Eshley began striding
away.

"Where are you going?" screamed Adela.

"To fetch implements," was the answer.

"Implements? I won't have you use a lasso. The room will be wrecked if
there's a struggle."

But the artist marched out of the garden. In a couple of minutes he
returned, laden with easel, sketching-stool, and painting materials.

"Do you mean to say that you're going to sit quietly down and paint that
brute while it's destroying my morning-room?" gasped Adela.

"It was your suggestion," said Eshley, setting his canvas in position.

"I forbid it; I absolutely forbid it!" stormed Adela.

"I don't see what standing you have in the matter," said the artist; "you
can hardly pretend that it's your ox, even by adoption."

"You seem to forget that it's in my morning-room, eating my flowers,"
came the raging retort.

"You seem to forget that the cook has neuralgia," said Eshley; "she may
be just dozing off into a merciful sleep and your outcry will waken her.
Consideration for others should be the guiding principle of people in our
station of life."

"The man is mad!" exclaimed Adela tragically. A moment later it was
Adela herself who appeared to go mad. The ox had finished the
vase-flowers and the cover of "Israel Kalisch," and appeared to be
thinking of leaving its rather restricted quarters. Eshley noticed its
restlessness and promptly flung it some bunches of Virginia creeper
leaves as an inducement to continue the sitting.

"I forget how the proverb runs," he observed; "of something about 'better
a dinner of herbs than a stalled ox where hate is.' We seem to have all
the ingredients for the proverb ready to hand."

"I shall go to the Public Library and get them to telephone for the
police," announced Adela, and, raging audibly, she departed.

Some minutes later the ox, awakening probably to the suspicion that oil
cake and chopped mangold was waiting for it in some appointed byre,
stepped with much precaution out of the morning-room, stared with grave
inquiry at the no longer obtrusive and pea-stick-throwing human, and then
lumbered heavily but swiftly out of the garden. Eshley packed up his
tools and followed the animal's example and "Larkdene" was left to
neuralgia and the cook.

The episode was the turning-point in Eshley's artistic career. His
remarkable picture, "Ox in a morning-room, late autumn," was one of the
sensations and successes of the next Paris Salon, and when it was
subsequently exhibited at Munich it was bought by the Bavarian
Government, in the teeth of the spirited bidding of three meat-extract
firms. From that moment his success was continuous and assured, and the
Royal Academy was thankful, two years later, to give a conspicuous
position on its walls to his large canvas "Barbary Apes Wrecking a
Boudoir."

Eshley presented Adela Pingsford with a new copy of "Israel Kalisch," and
a couple of finely flowering plants of _Madame Adnre Blusset_, but
nothing in the nature of a real reconciliation has taken place between
them.




THE STORY-TELLER


It was a hot afternoon, and the railway carriage was correspondingly
sultry, and the next stop was at Templecombe, nearly an hour ahead. The
occupants of the carriage were a small girl, and a smaller girl, and a
small boy. An aunt belonging to the children occupied one corner seat,
and the further corner seat on the opposite side was occupied by a
bachelor who was a stranger to their party, but the small girls and the
small boy emphatically occupied the compartment. Both the aunt and the
children were conversational in a limited, persistent way, reminding one
of the attentions of a housefly that refuses to be discouraged. Most of
the aunt's remarks seemed to begin with "Don't," and nearly all of the
children's remarks began with "Why?" The bachelor said nothing out loud.
"Don't, Cyril, don't," exclaimed the aunt, as the small boy began
smacking the cushions of the seat, producing a cloud of dust at each
blow.

"Come and look out of the window," she added.

The child moved reluctantly to the window. "Why are those sheep being
driven out of that field?" he asked.

"I expect they are being driven to another field where there is more
grass," said the aunt weakly.

"But there is lots of grass in that field," protested the boy; "there's
nothing else but grass there. Aunt, there's lots of grass in that
field."

"Perhaps the grass in the other field is better," suggested the aunt
fatuously.

"Why is it better?" came the swift, inevitable question.

"Oh, look at those cows!" exclaimed the aunt. Nearly every field along
the line had contained cows or bullocks, but she spoke as though she were
drawing attention to a rarity.

"Why is the grass in the other field better?" persisted Cyril.

The frown on the bachelor's face was deepening to a scowl. He was a
hard, unsympathetic man, the aunt decided in her mind. She was utterly
unable to come to any satisfactory decision about the grass in the other
field.

The smaller girl created a diversion by beginning to recite "On the Road
to Mandalay." She only knew the first line, but she put her limited
knowledge to the fullest possible use. She repeated the line over and
over again in a dreamy but resolute and very audible voice; it seemed to
the bachelor as though some one had had a bet with her that she could not
repeat the line aloud two thousand times without stopping. Whoever it
was who had made the wager was likely to lose his bet.

"Come over here and listen to a story," said the aunt, when the bachelor
had looked twice at her and once at the communication cord.

The children moved listlessly towards the aunt's end of the carriage.
Evidently her reputation as a story-teller did not rank high in their
estimation.

In a low, confidential voice, interrupted at frequent intervals by loud,
petulant questionings from her listeners, she began an unenterprising and
deplorably uninteresting story about a little girl who was good, and made
friends with every one on account of her goodness, and was finally saved
from a mad bull by a number of rescuers who admired her moral character.

"Wouldn't they have saved her if she hadn't been good?" demanded the
bigger of the small girls. It was exactly the question that the bachelor
had wanted to ask.

"Well, yes," admitted the aunt lamely, "but I don't think they would have
run quite so fast to her help if they had not liked her so much."

"It's the stupidest story I've ever heard," said the bigger of the small
girls, with immense conviction.

"I didn't listen after the first bit, it was so stupid," said Cyril.

The smaller girl made no actual comment on the story, but she had long
ago recommenced a murmured repetition of her favourite line.

"You don't seem to be a success as a story-teller," said the bachelor
suddenly from his corner.

The aunt bristled in instant defence at this unexpected attack.

"It's a very difficult thing to tell stories that children can both
understand and appreciate," she said stiffly.

"I don't agree with you," said the bachelor.

"Perhaps you would like to tell them a story," was the aunt's retort.

"Tell us a story," demanded the bigger of the small girls.

"Once upon a time," began the bachelor, "there was a little girl called
Bertha, who was extraordinarily good."

The children's momentarily-aroused interest began at once to flicker; all
stories seemed dreadfully alike, no matter who told them.

"She did all that she was told, she was always truthful, she kept her
clothes clean, ate milk puddings as though they were jam tarts, learned
her lessons perfectly, and was polite in her manners."

"Was she pretty?" asked the bigger of the small girls.

"Not as pretty as any of you," said the bachelor, "but she was horribly
good."

There was a wave of reaction in favour of the story; the word horrible in
connection with goodness was a novelty that commended itself. It seemed
to introduce a ring of truth that was absent from the aunt's tales of
infant life.

"She was so good," continued the bachelor, "that she won several medals
for goodness, which she always wore, pinned on to her dress. There was a
medal for obedience, another medal for punctuality, and a third for good
behaviour. They were large metal medals and they clicked against one
another as she walked. No other child in the town where she lived had as
many as three medals, so everybody knew that she must be an extra good
child."

"Horribly good," quoted Cyril.

"Everybody talked about her goodness, and the Prince of the country got
to hear about it, and he said that as she was so very good she might be
allowed once a week to walk in his park, which was just outside the town.
It was a beautiful park, and no children were ever allowed in it, so it
was a great honour for Bertha to be allowed to go there."

"Were there any sheep in the park?" demanded Cyril.

"No;" said the bachelor, "there were no sheep."

"Why weren't there any sheep?" came the inevitable question arising out
of that answer.

The aunt permitted herself a smile, which might almost have been
described as a grin.

"There were no sheep in the park," said the bachelor, "because the
Prince's mother had once had a dream that her son would either be killed
by a sheep or else by a clock falling on him. For that reason the Prince
never kept a sheep in his park or a clock in his palace."

The aunt suppressed a gasp of admiration.

"Was the Prince killed by a sheep or by a clock?" asked Cyril.

"He is still alive, so we can't tell whether the dream will come true,"
said the bachelor unconcernedly; "anyway, there were no sheep in the
park, but there were lots of little pigs running all over the place."

"What colour were they?"

"Black with white faces, white with black spots, black all over, grey
with white patches, and some were white all over."

The story-teller paused to let a full idea of the park's treasures sink
into the children's imaginations; then he resumed:

"Bertha was rather sorry to find that there were no flowers in the park.
She had promised her aunts, with tears in her eyes, that she would not
pick any of the kind Prince's flowers, and she had meant to keep her
promise, so of course it made her feel silly to find that there were no
flowers to pick."

"Why weren't there any flowers?"

"Because the pigs had eaten them all," said the bachelor promptly. "The
gardeners had told the Prince that you couldn't have pigs and flowers, so
he decided to have pigs and no flowers."

There was a murmur of approval at the excellence of the Prince's
decision; so many people would have decided the other way.

"There were lots of other delightful things in the park. There were
ponds with gold and blue and green fish in them, and trees with beautiful
parrots that said clever things at a moment's notice, and humming birds
that hummed all the popular tunes of the day. Bertha walked up and down
and enjoyed herself immensely, and thought to herself: 'If I were not so
extraordinarily good I should not have been allowed to come into this
beautiful park and enjoy all that there is to be seen in it,' and her
three medals clinked against one another as she walked and helped to
remind her how very good she really was. Just then an enormous wolf came
prowling into the park to see if it could catch a fat little pig for its
supper."

"What colour was it?" asked the children, amid an immediate quickening of
interest.

"Mud-colour all over, with a black tongue and pale grey eyes that gleamed
with unspeakable ferocity. The first thing that it saw in the park was
Bertha; her pinafore was so spotlessly white and clean that it could be
seen from a great distance. Bertha saw the wolf and saw that it was
stealing towards her, and she began to wish that she had never been
allowed to come into the park. She ran as hard as she could, and the
wolf came after her with huge leaps and bounds. She managed to reach a
shrubbery of myrtle bushes and she hid herself in one of the thickest of
the bushes. The wolf came sniffing among the branches, its black tongue
lolling out of its mouth and its pale grey eyes glaring with rage. Bertha
was terribly frightened, and thought to herself: 'If I had not been so
extraordinarily good I should have been safe in the town at this moment.'
However, the scent of the myrtle was so strong that the wolf could not
sniff out where Bertha was hiding, and the bushes were so thick that he
might have hunted about in them for a long time without catching sight of
her, so he thought he might as well go off and catch a little pig
instead. Bertha was trembling very much at having the wolf prowling and
sniffing so near her, and as she trembled the medal for obedience clinked
against the medals for good conduct and punctuality. The wolf was just
moving away when he heard the sound of the medals clinking and stopped to
listen; they clinked again in a bush quite near him. He dashed into the
bush, his pale grey eyes gleaming with ferocity and triumph, and dragged
Bertha out and devoured her to the last morsel. All that was left of her
were her shoes, bits of clothing, and the three medals for goodness."

"Were any of the little pigs killed?"

"No, they all escaped."

"The story began badly," said the smaller of the small girls, "but it had
a beautiful ending."

"It is the most beautiful story that I ever heard," said the bigger of
the small girls, with immense decision.

"It is the _only_ beautiful story I have ever heard," said Cyril.

A dissentient opinion came from the aunt.

"A most improper story to tell to young children! You have undermined
the effect of years of careful teaching."

"At any rate," said the bachelor, collecting his belongings preparatory
to leaving the carriage, "I kept them quiet for ten minutes, which was
more than you were able to do."

"Unhappy woman!" he observed to himself as he walked down the platform of
Templecombe station; "for the next six months or so those children will
assail her in public with demands for an improper story!"




A DEFENSIVE DIAMOND


Treddleford sat in an easeful arm-chair in front of a slumberous fire,
with a volume of verse in his hand and the comfortable consciousness that
outside the club windows the rain was dripping and pattering with
persistent purpose. A chill, wet October afternoon was merging into a
bleak, wet October evening, and the club smoking-room seemed warmer and
cosier by contrast. It was an afternoon on which to be wafted away from
one's climatic surroundings, and "The Golden journey to Samarkand"
promised to bear Treddleford well and bravely into other lands and under
other skies. He had already migrated from London the rain-swept to
Bagdad the Beautiful, and stood by the Sun Gate "in the olden time" when
an icy breath of imminent annoyance seemed to creep between the book and
himself. Amblecope, the man with the restless, prominent eyes and the
mouth ready mobilised for conversational openings, had planted himself in
a neighbouring arm-chair. For a twelvemonth and some odd weeks
Treddleford had skilfully avoided making the acquaintance of his voluble
fellow-clubman; he had marvellously escaped from the infliction of his
relentless record of tedious personal achievements, or alleged
achievements, on golf links, turf, and gaming table, by flood and field
and covert-side. Now his season of immunity was coming to an end. There
was no escape; in another moment he would be numbered among those who
knew Amblecope to speak to--or rather, to suffer being spoken to.

The intruder was armed with a copy of _Country Life_, not for purposes of
reading, but as an aid to conversational ice-breaking.

"Rather a good portrait of Throstlewing," he remarked explosively,
turning his large challenging eyes on Treddleford; "somehow it reminds me
very much of Yellowstep, who was supposed to be such a good thing for the
Grand Prix in 1903. Curious race that was; I suppose I've seen every
race for the Grand Prix for the last--"

"Be kind enough never to mention the Grand Prix in my hearing," said
Treddleford desperately; "it awakens acutely distressing memories. I
can't explain why without going into a long and complicated story."

"Oh, certainly, certainly," said Amblecope hastily; long and complicated
stories that were not told by himself were abominable in his eyes. He
turned the pages of _Country Life_ and became spuriously interested in
the picture of a Mongolian pheasant.

"Not a bad representation of the Mongolian variety," he exclaimed,
holding it up for his neighbour's inspection. "They do very well in some
covers. Take some stopping too, once they're fairly on the wing. I
suppose the biggest bag I ever made in two successive days--"

"My aunt, who owns the greater part of Lincolnshire," broke in
Treddleford, with dramatic abruptness, "possesses perhaps the most
remarkable record in the way of a pheasant bag that has ever been
achieved. She is seventy-five and can't hit a thing, but she always goes
out with the guns. When I say she can't hit a thing, I don't mean to say
that she doesn't occasionally endanger the lives of her fellow-guns,
because that wouldn't be true. In fact, the chief Government Whip won't
allow Ministerial M.P.'s to go out with her; 'We don't want to incur by-
elections needlessly,' he quite reasonably observed. Well, the other day
she winged a pheasant, and brought it to earth with a feather or two
knocked out of it; it was a runner, and my aunt saw herself in danger of
being done out of about the only bird she'd hit during the present reign.
Of course she wasn't going to stand that; she followed it through bracken
and brushwood, and when it took to the open country and started across a
ploughed field she jumped on to the shooting pony and went after it. The
chase was a long one, and when my aunt at last ran the bird to a
standstill she was nearer home than she was to the shooting party; she
had left that some five miles behind her."

"Rather a long run for a wounded pheasant," snapped Amblecope.

"The story rests on my aunt's authority," said Treddleford coldly, "and
she is local vice-president of the Young Women's Christian Association.
She trotted three miles or so to her home, and it was not till the middle
of the afternoon that it was discovered that the lunch for the entire
shooting party was in a pannier attached to the pony's saddle. Anyway,
she got her bird."

"Some birds, of course, take a lot of killing," said Amblecope; "so do
some fish. I remember once I was fishing in the Exe, lovely trout
stream, lots of fish, though they don't run to any great size--"

"One of them did," announced Treddleford, with emphasis. "My uncle, the
Bishop of Southmolton, came across a giant trout in a pool just off the
main stream of the Exe near Ugworthy; he tried it with every kind of fly
and worm every day for three weeks without an atom of success, and then
Fate intervened on his behalf. There was a low stone bridge just over
this pool, and on the last day of his fishing holiday a motor van ran
violently into the parapet and turned completely over; no one was hurt,
but part of the parapet was knocked away, and the entire load that the
van was carrying was pitched over and fell a little way into the pool. In
a couple of minutes the giant trout was flapping and twisting on bare mud
at the bottom of a waterless pool, and my uncle was able to walk down to
him and fold him to his breast. The van-load consisted of
blotting-paper, and every drop of water in that pool had been sucked up
into the mass of spilt cargo."

There was silence for nearly half a minute in the smoking-room, and
Treddleford began to let his mind steal back towards the golden road that
led to Samarkand. Amblecope, however, rallied, and remarked in a rather
tired and dispirited voice:

"Talking of motor accidents, the narrowest squeak I ever had was the
other day, motoring with old Tommy Yarby in North Wales. Awfully good
sort, old Yarby, thorough good sportsman, and the best--"

"It was in North Wales," said Treddleford, "that my sister met with her
sensational carriage accident last year. She was on her way to a garden-
party at Lady Nineveh's, about the only garden-party that ever comes to
pass in those parts in the course of the year, and therefore a thing that
she would have been very sorry to miss. She was driving a young horse
that she'd only bought a week or two previously, warranted to be
perfectly steady with motor traffic, bicycles, and other common objects
of the roadside. The animal lived up to its reputation, and passed the
most explosive of motor-bikes with an indifference that almost amounted
to apathy. However, I suppose we all draw the line somewhere, and this
particular cob drew it at travelling wild beast shows. Of course my
sister didn't know that, but she knew it very distinctly when she turned
a sharp corner and found herself in a mixed company of camels, piebald
horses, and canary-coloured vans. The dogcart was overturned in a ditch
and kicked to splinters, and the cob went home across country. Neither
my sister nor the groom was hurt, but the problem of how to get to the
Nineveh garden-party, some three miles distant, seemed rather difficult
to solve; once there, of course, my sister would easily find some one to
drive her home. 'I suppose you wouldn't care for the loan of a couple of
my camels?' the showman suggested, in humorous sympathy. 'I would,' said
my sister, who had ridden camel-back in Egypt, and she overruled the
objections of the groom, who hadn't. She picked out two of the most
presentable-looking of the beasts and had them dusted and made as tidy as
was possible at short notice, and set out for the Nineveh mansion. You
may imagine the sensation that her small but imposing caravan created
when she arrived at the hall door. The entire garden-party flocked up to
gape. My sister was rather glad to slip down from her camel, and the
groom was thankful to scramble down from his. Then young Billy Doulton,
of the Dragoon Guards, who has been a lot at Aden and thinks he knows
camel-language backwards, thought he would show off by making the beasts
kneel down in orthodox fashion. Unfortunately camel words-of-command are
not the same all the world over; these were magnificent Turkestan camels,
accustomed to stride up the stony terraces of mountain passes, and when
Doulton shouted at them they went side by side up the front steps, into
the entrance hall, and up the grand staircase. The German governess met
them just at the turn of the corridor. The Ninevehs nursed her with
devoted attention for weeks, and when I last heard from them she was well
enough to go about her duties again, but the doctor says she will always
suffer from Hagenbeck heart."