by Ruskin Bond
What happened there was soon known to the public. When (Herbert) James, two evenings later, left the office on his way to his future father-in-law's house in Belgrave Square, hoping to take his fiancée after dinner to a dance given by Lady Soxlet, he was confronted by placards announcing 'The Perfect Baby to Wed'. Taking no notice he went on to the Tube Station; but there he saw yet further placards. 'The World's Loveliest Baby now a Man', and 'Little Herbert Engaged'.
Still hardly conscious of the doom awaiting him, he bought an evening paper, and there he saw in black letters across the front page: 'Herbert's Identity at last Discovered', and underneath the fatal words: 'The young City man, Mr James Wilkins, whose engagement to Miss Selena Courtney, of 299 Belgrave Square, was announced two days ago, has been revealed by his mother, Mrs Wilkins, to be Herbert, the Wonder Baby.' There followed descriptions of the Perfect Childhood, stories taken from the Herbert Legend; rapid advertisements rushed out by What-Not's natural Digestive Infants' Milk, Flopsy's Fleecy Pram Covers, and Hebe's Nectar for the Difficult Child, illustrated by photographs of the Infant Herbert. The publishers of the Book of Herbert announced a new edition, and a famous Daily Paper, whose circulation was guaranteed to be over 2,000,000, declared its intention of publishing a series of articles called 'My Herbert is a Man, by Herbert's Mother'.
Herbert did not proceed to Belgrave Square. He went to Kensington. With his own latchkey he opened the door and went up to his mother's boudoir. He found her laughing and crying with joy over the evening paper. She looked up and saw her son.
'Oh, darling,' she said. 'I thought you were taking Selena to a dance.'
'There is no Selena,' declared Herbert grimly. 'There is no dance. There is only you and me.'
He should, doubtless, have said: 'You and I,' but among the things a Fella does, correct grammar is not necessarily included.
'Oh, Herbert,' cried Mrs Wilkins, with ecstatic joy. 'My mother instinct was right. Mother always knows, darling. You have come back to me.'
'I have,' said Herbert.
And he strangled her with a rope of twisted newspapers.
The judge declared it justifiable homicide, and Herbert changed his name to William Brown and went to plant tea or rubber or something in the Malay States, where Selena joined him two years later—and Mr Wilkins lived to a ripe old age at the Brighton house and looked after his dividends, and everyone was really very happy after all.
Golden Silence
CROSBIE GARSTIN
I met Hepplethwaite two miles west of the river drift. He was homeward bound to his store at Mokala, sitting on a waggon, nursing a large square box on his knees as if it were his only child and uninsured at that.
We passed the time of day, agreed that veld was scarce, and water scarcer.
Said I: 'Wouldn't you find it less warm if you could persuade that packing-case to get off your lap and sit somewhere else?'
"Fraid of breaking it, it's a gramophone.'
'Where did you get it'
'Took it over from the railway gauger, Kreige, in part payment for some sheep.'
'Any records?'
'Only four, but I'll get some more up from Cape Town. I'm rather glad I've got it now; a fellow gets fed up with the everlasting silence out in the bush and the sound of his own voice talking to nobody, don't he?'
'He do,' I agreed.
'This'll be a bit of variety—drop out my way some day and we'll let her rip off a tune or two.'
I accepted the invitation and we parted. I didn't envy him his seventy-mile tramp to Mokala cuddling that cornery crate all the way; still, music hath charms, and one has to make some sacrifices. I was out near Mokala buying goats a fortnight later, so I called in on Hepplethwaite. We had supper and sat outside his hut afterwards, smoking our pipes and watching the moon rise over the bush.
He asked if I would care to hear the gramophone, and I said I should.
He bawled to his cook-boy who cranked up the engine and let it get a record off its chest.
'I've taught Mackintyre to work the thing,' Hepplethwaite explained, 'it saves me having to jump up every minute or two to put on the brakes and reload, etc; he's tickled to death with it, calls it the "Fairy in the box." '
'Home Sweet Home' finished and 'Annie Laurie' commenced.
'Great invention, when you come to think of it,' Hepplethwaite observed. 'Great invention, the gramophone. Have your potted Caruso after coffee; tired of him, open a tin of Melba; weary of Melba, uncork a jar of Lauder; and so. Great idea.'
'Annie Laurie' wailed to a close and the versatile machine rang a chime on the 'Blue Bells of Scotland.'
'Great idea, when you come to think of it. Nowadays you don't have to dedicate half your life to sawing at a fiddle or plunking a piano, don't have to let your hair grow and all that to get a respectable noise when you want it, you just sell an ox, buy a gramophone, and have the whole boiling lot at your nod—marvellous business, when you come to consider it.'
'Half a moment,' said I, interrupting his unsolicited testimonial. 'That boy of yours is putting on "Annie Laurie" Again; we've just had her.'
'I know, can't be helped. I only have three records now. The fourth, "Mary of Argyle," fell off a table into a scrap between my bull-terrier and Bob St John's mastiff. "Mary" got the worst of it.'
'You're going to get some more records though, aren't you?'
'Rather. I've sent down to the coast for a catalogue. I'll get some Gilbert and Sullivan, I think. 'Yeomen of the Guard,' 'Dorothy,' and so forth, also some Gaiety pieces and some ragtime; there are great possibilities in gramophones. You must drop out some day when they arrive, and we'll have a blooming Queen's Hall concert.'
He turned and shouted again to Mackintyre, the cook-boy, who obediently slipped the engine into the low gear.
'Told him to play them over again, slowly this time, by way of variety.'
Later on in the evening we had the three pieces over again at full speed this time by way of more variety. By permutations and combinations Hepplethwaite had worked out how many varieties there were to be got out of those three pieces.
You, gentle reader, may work it out for yourself, if you are given to combination and permutations; anyway, there are quite a lot, and we had them all that night before we turned in.
At breakfast next morning Mackintyre, who gloried in his new accomplishment, served us up 'Annie Laurie' with the porridge, 'Home Sweet Home' with the goat ribs, and 'The Blue Bells of Scotland' with the marmalade. I rode away after that.
If anybody had asked me to sing (which they never do) any of these three songs backwards, forwards, sideways, or upside down during the next month I could have done so, yea, even in my sleep. Sometime later I got a letter from Hepplethwaite. He had sundry heifers for sale, would I come out and look at them?
I reached Mokala in the late afternoon; Hepplethwaite was in the store, so also was Jopie Ziervogel. Jopie Ziervogel, along with his vrouw, a lady built on very much the same lines as a Baltic galliot, inhabits a wattle and dab hut in Chaka's Stadt, where he repairs the native ploughs and waggons in return for stock and fair promises.
'Hello,' said Hepplethwaite, 'that you? Sit down and make yourself at home, heifers will be in at sundown. Cup of tea? Jopie, a cup of tea?'
Jopie squirmed about in his chair, shuffled his velschoen (in which he sleeps) over the floorboards, coughed, smiled, and said he didn't mind if he did. 'S'cuse me a moment,' said Hepplethwaite. 'Lo batlau?'
The two native girls addressed produced black cones of Makalaka tobacco, which they exchanged after much haggling for some beads, brass wire and the inevitable barsella, or tip, of two cotton reels.
Mackintyre brought in three cups of tea, grinned a white grin that looked like dawn breaking through pitchy night, and went off to cook the evening's meal.
Jopie squirmed about in his chair, blushed and stammered out an opinion that the weather was hot but that he thought we'd have more rain.
A nude native entered bearing two
mangy fowls upside down by the legs, which he sold for some kaffir corn and a barsella of a handful of sweets. Jopie laid down his empty cup, shuffled his velschoen violently, squirmed on his chair in a paroxysm of embarrassment, went scarlet in the face, and gasped out:
'Mis-ter 'Epplethwaite, could I year a chune on the gramyphone, please, Mis-ter 'Epplethwaite, please?'
Hepplethwaite put down his pen and looked at Jopie as if that gentleman's sudden and immediate demise would make a happy man of him. He picked up a heavy ebony ruler and grasped it, bludgeon-wise in a tense fist; then his hand relaxed and he sighed. 'Mackintyre, bring the gramophone,' he shouted wearily, and strode out of the store to bargain for an ox that a spindle-shanked ancient had for sale.
To be a successful Kaffir storekeeper one must be equally at home among ploughs, patent medicines, and peppermint drops, beads, blankets and bovines, one must combine the patience of a Job with the commercial acumen of a Scotch Jew of Yankee extraction, one must be all this and then some.
Mackintyre appeared bearing the music-maker, wound it up and set the 'Blue Bells of Scotland' ringing the old familiar tune.
Jopie sat back in his chair, his ears wide open, a smile of æsthetic ecstasy nearly splitting him in half.
We had 'Home Sweet Home' after that, and the 'Blue Bells' again after that, after that we had 'Home Sweet Home'. I went out to where Hepplethwaite and the ancient were endeavouring to bluff each other under.
'Where's "Annie Laurie"?' I asked.
'Bust. Bob St John felt suddenly tired here one night and sat on her.'
Inside the store Jopie had got the 'Blue Bells' at it again. Hepplethwaite shivered and jerked his head towards the noise.
'He comes here about once a week and sits playing those two darn tunes over and over, back and forth the whole blessed afternoon, until I'm nearly off my blooming head.'
'Why do you let him?'
'Oh, well, he's a customer, you know. Buys a tin of coffee and a pound of sugar once in a way, and a packet of sweets on Christmas Days and blue moons. Got to oblige customers, you know.'
At this point the ancient teetered up and said that seeing it was his old college chum Hepplethwaite, he'd take three pounds fifteen shilling for the ox—he had demanded eight pounds earlier in the afternoon. Hepplethwaite burst into cackles of well-simulated mirth—I forgot to say that to be a successful Kaffir storekeeper one has also to be an actor of no trifling ability.
'Ha, ha! Three pounds fifteen for that ox! Why, it was so old it would probably die a natural death before nightfall, and so thin it would do nicely as a hat rack, wheeled into the front hall.' Another cackle of well-simulated mirth. 'Ha, ha! M'purru' (M'purru being the ancient) 'must be cracking a joke at his' (Hepplethwaite's) 'expense, a humorist, a funny man, what? Three pounds fifteen, ha, ha, very amusing!'
The ancient said there was no joke intended, and in that case he and the ox must go home.
'Go!' said Hepplethwaite, winking at me, and the ancient drove the ox off round the corner of the store. Inside the tin building the gramophone was singing 'Home Sweet Home' to the entranced Jopie. Hepplethwaite groaned, 'It isn't only Jopie but Bob St John and his crowd from the "Eland"; they stop here on their way back and forth from the mine, tumble whooping off their Cape cart, haul out the gramophone, and keep it grinding away until the last survivor drops flat somewhere in the thin hours of morning—it's the limit, believe me.'
'Why do you stand for it? Are they customers, too?'
'Yes, pretty good customers, too, confound 'em!'
'Where are those new records you were talking about—"Dorothy," the "Yeomen of the Guard," and all?'
Hepplethwaite snorted. 'My confounded transport manager drank his back teeth awash on Kaffir beer in at the siding, pulled out at midnight with the case of records on top of a load of grain and lashed the span lickety split down into the Bongola River in flood—being hopelessly drunk he was about the only thing saved.'
The ancient poked his corrugated face round the store corner.
'I am going, Baas.'
'All right.'
'Three pound and a half, Baas?'
'Three pound, I told you.'
'Good-bye, Baas.'
'Good-bye, M'purru.' The face withdrew slowly.
'So you're still harping along with "Home Sweet Home" and the "Blue Bells"—eh?'
'No, I'm not, Bob. Jopie, Mackintyre & Co. are though.'
'Going to try again?'
'Sure enough. I've sent for another case, it should be up next week.'
Jopie, having played the 'Blue Bells of Scotland' to a lingering finish, rolled out of the store, insisted on shaking hands with both of us, took off his hat, mounted a rusty yellow mare, and tripped off home to his vrouw.
We turned back to the store, at the door of which we discovered the ancient, squatting on his lean hams.
'Three pound five shillings, Baas,' said he.
'Ociami,' Hepplethwaite graciously agreed, and paid him in goods at the retail value of three pounds five and the wholesale value of one pound ten. There is something in commercial life that appeals to me.
That night after supper Mackintyre attempted to give us 'Home Sweet Home,' but we choked the machine at the first whoop, and kicked the impresario swiftly in the direction of his hut. Time passed on, and one day I was in Knox's store at the siding buying myself some tea to mix with a little water I had at home.
Knox was reading a letter that a native runner had just brought in; it seemed to annoy Knox, he mumbled sourly from time to time.
'What's towelling you?' I asked.
'Hepplethwaite, I do his forwarding from the railway, y'know, also for Hergesheimer, up at Nyoriliwe. One's case marks are H.M., t'other's H.N. In the dark the other night I made a mistake and sent some of Heppy's stuff up to Hergesheimer—Heppy's got snotty about it,' he wagged that merchant's letter; 'don't see why, perfectly reasonable mistake.'
'Let me see,' said I, 'Nyoriliwe is about six hundred miles away, isn't it, across the desert? When will Hergesheimer's waggon be back?'
'In about ten weeks if his spans are fit and he bustles 'em back immediately, which he won't—still, I don't see why Heppy should rear up and paw the air like that, it was only some footling gramophone records, anyhow.'
'Some what?'
'Gramophone records—what are you laughing at?'
'Nothing,' said I. 'Gimme my tea and lemme go.'
Hepplethwaite was in his little fenced-off patch of a garden when I rode up, drenching his budding pumpkins with his morning's bath water—one learns the economics in our country.
'Dumela,' said he, jerking the last soapy dregs over up aspiring lettuce, 'You've come just in time for scoff; hang an your horse and walk right into the kya.'
Supper over, we dragged our deck-chairs out of doors and sat smoking our pipes and talking 'beef on the heel' as ever.
'Like to hear the gramophone?' he asked.
'Well, if you've got any new records——'
Hepplethwaite chuckled grimly.
'No, I haven't got any new records, half my new records are floating downstream towards the Indian Ocean and t'other half must be getting pretty near the German West African border by now. Moreover, I haven't got any gramophone; you've come just two hours too late, my son.'
'What's happened?'
'A whole lot of things; one of them was that I got fed up to busting point with gramophones. The gramophone is a noble invention, but I've been unlucky and determined to get rid of mine.'
'Did you sell it to Jopie?'
'I tried to; he rose to it like a trout at first but afterwards he thought he'd better talk it over with his vrouw. They were closeted in solemn conclave for about a month; at the end he rode over and said he was afraid they couldn't afford it just then, but if the Chief Chaka paid up for the shortening of four waggon tyres, and Intaemer broke his iron plough beam which was already cracked and paid Jopie for welding it, if I would take half a bag of seed oats and some fo
wls in part payment, and if the old spotted cow had a heifer calf at Christmas then they would go into conclave again and let me know the result sometime about Easter.
'The "Eland" Cape Cart, homeward bound, rolled up just after Jopie had gone; Bob St John was abroad with two miners and a case of "Dop". They stayed up most of the night. Bob St John teaching one miner the Argentine Tango to the strains of "Home Sweet Home," lugging the poor, half-strangled blighter round and round the hut, smashing into the furniture, while the other miner beat time with two tin plates, kept the engine running and accompanied it with song and hiccoughs. A kind of tired feeling began to steal over me about dawn.
'When they departed next day, the gramophone was lashed to the cart's rack unbeknown to them.
'Now, thought I, if they want "Bluebells" and "Home Sweet Home" all night and day they can have it to their souls' content out on the "Eland" without troubling me. I don't know the fellow who said "Silence is golden," but he spoke the word that time all right; it is not only golden, but strung with pearls, festooned with diamonds and plastered with mitres; anyway, that's how I felt the night after the Cape Cart left.'
I laughed. 'So that ended the gramophone.'
'No it didn't, wait a bit—this afternoon I went out to see if I could hit a buck, and coming home I saw the spoor of a Cape Cart and six mules; there is only one in this district and that's the "Elands." When I got to the store I found they had not stopped, but gone on; they meant to camp at the Bongola waterholes tonight, my boy said, they had left a parcel for me, however.
'Yes, it was the gramophone, of course, sitting on my table, wrapped up in sacking, come back like a cat, like a bad ha'penny, like a ruddy boomerang. There was also a note thanking me for the loan of my instrument which they herewith returned along with one record, "Home Sweet Home" having unfortunately committed suicide by hurling itself from a shelf.
'What did you do then?'
'What did I do, what did I do?—I took the whole box of tricks and thrust them into Mackintyre's arms. "Take 'em," I said, "miles away from here, miles and miles; take 'em to some desolate corner of the world and smash 'em into little, tiny, small smithereens, smash 'em into powder, into nothing at all." '
