The Thousand Deaths of Mr Small

by Gerald Kersh

  “Did they get any papers, or any machinery out of the basement?” asked Solly Schwartz, adding: “Have a cigar.”

  “Thank you sir, but I can’t smoke it now … and even if I could, I haven’t got a light. We just put it out.” Pleased by this witticism, he repeated: “No, we just put it out. Papers, did you say? Oh Lord, I should say not. What else was it you said? Machinery? Nothing of the kind, nothing of the kind. There was all kinds of scrap-metal. They shovelled it up. But machinery, not likely. I’m sorry to say even your friend was nothing but charred bones. Must have knocked the lamp over or something—very likely drunk, I should think. Anyway that basement went up like a pinch of gunpowder in a candle, and there you are, that’s what comes of losing your self-control.”

  Beating the macadam with his stick, Solly Schwartz shouted: “Bloody hell!”

  “I understand your feelings, but feelings are no excuse for Language in Public,” said the policeman.

  Solly Schwartz, first looking left and right to assure himself that there were no witnesses, said: “Language? Language——” and snarled the wickedest and dirtiest words he knew. Then he said: “Here you are, here’s some more cigars for you;” pushed the cigars into the policeman’s hands, and, turning on his iron foot, went hobbling back to the top of the street, cursing himself. He remembered Mr. Goodridge, staggering drunk with his cigar and flaring fusee—a match designed to burn against a high wind—and thinking of the lamp, the oily rags, the waste paper, said: “It serves me right! It serves me right!”

  CHAPTER XV

  HE felt as a man might feel who has absent-mindedly burnt a thousand-pound note to light a sixpenny cigar. He cursed himself when he thought of all that was lost in the dust and the ashes of the burnt house—the salt-sprinklers, pipe joints, corkscrews, even that queer, chattering piece of machinery that could do the work of a trained book-keeper, infallibly, in half a second, and might even be made to do infinitesimal calculus and logarithms, whatever they might be. A machine such as that, in a great counting house, would be worth more than its weight in gold: it would not need feeding, it would want no wages, it would not fall in love and get married, it would not require even such diplomacy as old Cohen employed in dealing with a temperamental button-hole-maker. Every business house, every bank in the world would pay through the nose for such a machine; and there it was, burnt up and disintegrated, a couple of shovelfuls of fused and twisted scrap-metal, together with the man who had conceived it and given thirty-five years of his life to it. That man Goodridge had been in himself a gold-mine; and now he was ashes.

  In a spasm of rage Solly Schwartz hurled the bottle of gin into the gutter, with such violence that it seemed to explode like a bombshell. Another policeman said, sternly: “Now then! What’s the game?”

  “It slipped out of my hand,” said Solly Schwartz.

  “What a shame!”

  “To hell with it. Here you are, catch hold,” said Solly Schwartz, throwing the roast capon to the policeman, who instinctively caught it, and stood stupidly blinking at it while the hunchback went on his way.

  Soon his anger cooled and, remembering that he still had the self-opening tin can, the Peli-Can, he composed himself and sat down to work out schemes, because he felt that it was necessary, now, to be strong, patient, adroit, and extremely cautious.

  While his tin can was being examined, before the patent was sealed, he hopped up and down the streets of the city, limping in and out of grocery shops, and feverishly pumping manufacturers. Not far from the squalid little house in which he lived there was a well-stocked branch of the Provincial Stores, where Solly Schwartz used to buy the tins of sardines and pink salmon that he liked to eat in his bedroom. He took to dropping in at four o’clock in the afternoon, when business was slack. Then the cashier, in her little glass case, knitted a scarf of seven colours for her young man—Solly Schwartz had found out all about it—and the chief assistant, in an alpaca coat and a long white apron, twirled his moustache at the two young ladies who served under him behind the counter. At that time of the day the manager, a subservient but spiteful little man with a snarling Midland accent, went into a matchboard box at the back of the shop and drank a pot of tea. Solly Schwartz became effusively friendly with this manager. His name was Lumpitt, and he was a disappointed man, a failure. Lumpitt greatly admired Solly Schwartz—the clothes he wore, the canes he handled, the way he carried gold and silver loose in his pocket without a purse—above all, his marvellous self-confidence. For Lumpitt was a weak, irresolute man, and that was why he was where he was; finished at fifty-five, running a little branch of a big man’s business in a slum; on the edge of the scrap-heap. They had many a pleasant chat. Solly Schwartz deferred to Lumpitt, speaking to him with the profoundest respect for his superior knowledge of the grocery business. “Now what would be the weight of this tin of pineapple?” he would ask.

  “That, sir? The nett weight of that would be about one pound four ounces.”

  “No, really? One pound four ounces? It’s no use talking, Mr. Lumpitt, you know your business all right. I’ll bet you anything you like there’s not many gentlemen in your trade in London who could answer pat like that: ‘One pound four ounces.’ That’s what I admire about you—you know what’s what. I admire a man who knows what’s he up to. Why don’t you come out with me one evening and let’s go to a music hall?”

  “Ah, that’s out of the question, I’m afraid. I’m a married man, you see.”

  “We’ll arrange it, Mr. Lumpitt, on my word of honour, we’ll arrange all that, believe me. Don’t worry. You’re the sort of man I like—a man who knows his business. You and me’ll have a night out. We’ll go to the Alhambra and see the girls. Me, you know, I’m not much to look at, I’m not what you’d call an oil painting. So I’d gladly stand treat if I could have a good-looking fellow like you with me. And you carry yourself like a gentleman, which is more than can be said for a lot of people I could mention.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” said Mr. Lumpitt, smiling. “But once upon a time I used to be pretty near as well dressed as you, Mr. Schwartz. I had my own business once, a very nice little business, in the Midlands. In Slupworth. Have you ever been to Slupworth, sir?”

  “No, I can’t say I have had that privilege,” said Solly Schwartz earnestly, “but I’ve often wanted to go. You were in the provision business there, were you?”

  “I dare say if you went to Slupworth to-morrow and said to anybody: ‘Do you remember George Lumpitt who had the shop in Royal Road,’ they’d say: ‘I do!’ and here I am, as you see, sir, working as a servant for my own worst enemy, me that was my own master.”

  “It’s a shame, Mr. Lumpitt, it’s a terrible shame. A man with your knowledge of——” Solly Schwartz waved an arm in a spiral gesture that included the contents of all the shelves in the shop. “—Yes, you and me must certainly get out one night. But tell me now just for curiosity’s sake. You know all about these things, I’m ignorant. You know I’ve been buying lots and lots of tins of this, that and the other?”

  “And paying cash like a gentleman, sir.”

  “Well, there’s something I’ve been wondering about. I suppose there must be at least fifteen different sorts of tinned stuff in stock here. I mean tinned stuff put up by at least a dozen different manufacturers.”

  “Eleven, to be precise” said Mr. Lumpitt with pride. “First of all there’s——”

  “—Yes, Mr. Lumpitt, I can see you know the business from A to Z, from the tips of your fingers. Now tell me something. I ask you because I happen to be curious, and you’re the sort of man I like to have a chat with. Now tell me: how many different makes of tinned peas do you stock?”

  Counting on his fingers Mr. Lumpitt said: “Five. Yes, we stock five separate and distinct brands of tinned pea.”

  “Now whose do you sell most of?”

  “We sell most of Narwall’s Fresh Garden Peas,” said Mr. Lumpitt, with a short laugh and a wry smile.

  “
Now why is that? Because they’re better, or what?”

  “Narwall’s are no better and no worse than any other peas, sir. We sell more of Narwall’s for the simple reason that we have strict instructions to push ’em, because Narwall, who puts ’em up, happens to own the Provincial Stores, you see—forty-eight branches, all over the country—huh!”

  “What’s the huh for, Mr. Lumpitt?”

  “I don’t want to appear bitter, but I’ve got my reasons, and so have plenty more like me. Narwall!” Mr. Lumpitt lowered his voice and said: “All I can say is, if he was where I wished him … Well, he’s so mean, he won’t have a fire lit in the house until the middle of October. Well, if he was where I wish he was, he’d find that they weren’t sparing of the coal all the year round.”

  “What, you know him?” said Solly Schwartz, keen as a terrier.

  “I know him, sir, to my cost. I knew him when he was nothing but a nobody in Slupworth. He used to keep a little General Shop in Paradise Lane—a penn’orth of this, a ha’porth of that, a farden’s worth of t’other—when I was my own master in the Royal Road, well-known and respected. It was a lovely little business, sir. I turned over my thirty or forty pound a week. You can ask——”

  “—No, is that a fact?”

  “—While Narwall was bowing and scraping to the lowest of the low in Paradise Lane. ‘Two farden candles, a penn’orth of pepper, a gill o’ vinegar, and a penn’orth o’ lump salt—and look sharp about it! —— Yes sir, yes mum’ … that was his kind of trade, twenty-five years ago. Why, he was no class. Everybody used to look down on him. And now he’s a millionaire, and I’m his humble servant, and if I saw him to-morrow and didn’t take my hat off to him I dare say he’d give me the sack. Yes sir, when you’re as old as I am—I’m rising sixty—you’ll understand that there’s no justice in the world.”

  “Yes, but what d’you mean? How could he? What are you talking about? This man starts selling penny screws of pepper and gills of vinegar, and then all of a sudden—one, two, three!—he opens forty-eight shops and starts making tinned peas? Are you joking?”

  “I wish I was. It wasn’t all of a sudden. It took time. Nobody knows the ins and outs of it, but one fine day Narwall gives up his dirty little General Shop and starts calling himself a Wholesaler and Retailer, if you please, in the provision business. Wholesaler and Retailer if you don’t mind!” said Mr. Lumpitt, with a scornful laugh, “and before you knew where you were he was buying up business premises.”

  “How? How did he do it, out of a penn’orth of pepper and a ha’porth of candles?”

  “I don’t rightly know. All I know is, one day he comes into my shop—my shop in Royal Road—looking like I don’t know what. You’d think that a man who’d come up in the world like he did would go out and smarten himself up a bit—you know, a clean collar, a new hat, or something like that. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Very likely,” said Solly Schwartz.

  “Not Narwall, oh dear no! He was too mean even to get himself a pair of boot-laces. As sure as I sit here,” said Mr. Lumpitt, passionately, “the laces in his boots was a mass of knots; and poor as I am I’d be ashamed to be seen dead in those boots. Poor as I am, I’ve given many a better pair of boots to beggars at the door. Quite apart from all that I was a cut above him then, you know.”

  “I can well believe it—you’re a superior sort of man, Mr. Lumpitt. But go on.”

  “I said: ‘Well, Narwall, what can I do for you?’ And he said: ‘Good morning, Mr. Lumpitt, I’ve come to buy your shop.’ I burst out laughing. ‘You’ve come to what?’——‘I’ve come to buy your shop, Mr. Lumpitt, lock, stock and barrel and goodwill. Tell me what you consider a fair price and if I agree to it I’ll write you a cheque. Well?’——‘Mr. Narwall, are you out of your mind?’ I’d heard that he’d been making money, but I didn’t know he was as rich as he really was, and neither did anyone else. Well, he looks at me and says: ‘I hope I am not out of my mind, Mr. Lumpitt. I asked you a simple question. I’ll repeat it. How much do you want for the business?’ I said to him: ‘I don’t want anything for the business, thank you very much. It’s the nicest little business in the best position in the Royal Road, and I’m quite comfortable, thanks all the same.’ I said it sarcastic, and looked him up and down, and my good lady who was behind the counter with me gave him one of her looks and said: ‘Well, of all the sauce!’ Well, so then he said: ‘State a fair price and I won’t haggle. I’m making you an open offer. If you won’t come to terms you must take the consequences.’——‘And may I ask what consequences I must take, Mr.-Blooming-Narwall?’——‘Why, Mr. Lumpitt, I’ll take those empty premises across the road, and open up a grocery shop that’ll put you out of business in a year.’”

  Mr. Lumpitt paused, biting the ends of his drooping moustache. Solly Schwartz impatiently snapped: “Go on! What happened next?”

  “I showed him the door. I said: ‘Damn your impudence, be off!’ He said: ‘You’d better think it over, you know.’ Then I said: ‘There’s nothing to think over. I’m well-known and respected in Royal Road. I give good value for money, and a little overweight. Everybody knows that I don’t count every grain of rice or pinch of tapioca, and that’s why they come to me. You go away.’——‘Is that your last word, Mr. Lumpitt?’——‘Yes, it is, and good day to you.’”

  “What did he do then?”

  “What did he not do then? There was a draper called Morgan just across the street whose business was up for sale. What does Narwall do but buy it up, sell in the stock dirt cheap, and the next thing you knew, there was a whole army of workmen tearing down the front and putting in a new one, and up went a fascia—all golden letters and glass—Provincial Stores. That didn’t worry my fat very much, because business was as usual. Then he took and stocked it chock full with provisions of all sorts, but still I didn’t worry, because I sold nothing but the best at the lowest possible price and was well liked and patronised accordingly. And then, three days before he opened, he sent men with sandwich boards round the town saying that to celebrate the opening of the Provincial Store every customer would get two of whatever he wanted to buy for the price of one—two pounds of rice for the price of one, two pounds of sugar for the price of one, two tins of salmon for the price of one, and so on. What do you think of that for a dirty trick?”

  Solly Schwartz stopped himself in the middle of an eager nod of approval and said: “Terrible! But what happened then?”

  “Ask yourself the question, sir. The ladies were lining up With their baskets an hour before that shop opened. Two policemen had to keep order. And when the doors opened they rushed in and they emptied those shelves within half an hour. It was a dead loss, of course, but he could afford it, it seemed. He was re-stocked by the following morning, and had another lot of sandwich men up and down the town with notices saying that everything in the Provincial Store was a little bit cheaper than anywhere else in Slupworth. Do you see? He was selling at cost price which, given overheads, means to say he was selling at a dead loss—just to break me.”

  “Yes, yes, of course, of course!”

  “Is there anything to smile about in this? Because if so——”

  “—What, smiling? Who, me? I’ve got a fishbone stuck up here in my gum. Why should I smile? What that man did was wicked,” said Solly Schwartz.

  “You’re right. I’m all for fair trade, fair competition, and none of these dirty tricks. There was no use my cutting back, because I didn’t have the capital to hold out, you see. So I tried to hold on. But I ask you: if I’m selling an article for sixpence and a man across the road is selling that selfsame identical article for fivepence, who would you patronise?”

  “Regarding you as a friend I would patronise you,” said Solly Schwartz. “But the majority of people wouldn’t see any sense in spending sixpence where fivepence would do.”

  “And there you are, you see. The business went down like … like sand out of an egg-boiler. And here I am.”

 
Solly Schwartz asked, eagerly: “And did he break you in a year?”

  “Ten months and eleven days,” said Mr. Lumpitt.

  “And then?”

  “Then I had nothing but a few pounds I put aside, and I didn’t know what to do. Then, when I’d put up a clearance sale notice before I got out, Narwall comes into the shop. I had a jar of pickles in my hand and I don’t mind telling you I came pretty near to letting him have it between the eyes like Cain and Abel. But he said: ‘Lumpitt, I’m sorry to see you in this state, but you must admit that I gave you a fair word of warning. If you’d done what I suggested last January all this wouldn’t have happened—you’d’ve been established in another business in some other place. Now look at you.’ I said to him: ‘Ay, established in another business in another place, to keep it warm for you, I dare say, damn you, you hypocrite!’ He’s a churchgoer, you know; a thorough-going Christian. Sell all you have and give to the poor … suffer little children to come unto me … you know, all that kind of thing, He suffered little children to come unto him all right. And, my eye, he made ’em suffer, I can tell you! Got ’em out of orphanages—always the true-blue Christian—put ’em to work in his shops, fed ’em on cocoa and skilly, paid ‘em something less than half o’ nothing a week, and made a song of it, all about ‘the least of these’, and ‘better a millstone were tied around his confounded neck and he were chucked into the sea’, etcetera, etcetera. You know that kind?”

  “Only too well,” said Solly Schwartz. “But go on, it’s interesting. You’re a marvellous talker, you know. You make everything seem so real.”

  “Well, I’ll cut a long story short. Narwall says: ‘Look here, Lumpitt’—Lumpitt, mind you, him as had been thankful if I smiled at him when he raised his hat to me in the street—he says: ‘If you haven’t made any plans and haven’t had the providence to put by sufficient capital to establish yourself elsewhere, being as I know you, Lumpitt, I am prepared to offer you a responsible position in one of my branches.’”