Bright Ideas: A Record of Invention and Misinvention

by Herbert Strang

  *IV*

  After early supper that evening, Eves and Templeton, giving each an armto Mrs. Pouncey, set off for the Literary Institute. The good woman wasgreatly excited at the prospect of giving her vote for the first timenext day, and had announced her intention of voting for "the gentleman,"whereupon Eves had reproached her, with well-assumed severity.

  "That is not the right spirit, I am sure of it," he said. "You aregoing to exercise for the first time the priceless privilege, or right,or duty, of the franchise: a most solemn responsibility, Mrs. Pouncey.Yet you have made up your mind to vote for 'the gentleman' withoutconsidering what views he professes, and without hearing the other side,which may be one of Nature's gentlemen."

  "I like 'em best bred, same as pig," said Mrs. Pouncey, stoutly.

  "I don't dispute your taste," returned Eves, "but I think you owe it tothe principle of fair play at least to hear what the other fellow mayhave to say. This is your last chance: to-morrow is the fatal day: likethe man in the poem, you must make up your mind between truth andfalsehood, 'twixt the good and evil side."

  "Oh! how you do talk, Mr. Eves!" said Mrs. Pouncey. "I'll go, then, toplease you, and I hope as I shan't be sorry for it."

  "I don't think you will; in fact I think you will have quite a pleasantentertainment. Mr. Noakes has insisted on the hall being warm andcosy-like, and the chairs are quite good. I'll find you a good place atthe back of the hall."

  "Not too far back, then, for my hearing bain't what it was."

  "But your eyes are good--wonderfully good for a lady of forty or so.You shall sit where you can hear--and see--everything."

  Templeton had privately taken Eves to task for persuading the old dameto venture out on a cold night; but Eves had only chuckled.

  The young officers were both in mufti, Eves having borrowed an old suitfrom his friend.

  It was twenty minutes to seven when they reached the hall. The firstfew rows of chairs were already occupied, and people were streaming in.Eves piloted Mrs. Pouncey to a seat in the middle of the sixth row fromthe back wall.

  "It do be warmish, to be sure," she said, removing her tippet.

  "Thanks to the mayor! Bob, look after Mrs. Pouncey. I'll be backpresently."

  He dodged his way through the incoming stream, and disappeared.

  Templeton sat beside Mrs. Pouncey, looking around the audience with anair of mild interest, and quite unconscious that the good lady wasbasking in the glory reflected upon her by the companionship of the"young feller as had his name in the paper." She nodded and smiled ather friends and acquaintances, and bridled visibly when she saw headsput together, nods in her direction, curious glances at Templeton, andlips whispering into ready ears.

  The hall gradually filled. Tradesmen of the town, farmers from theoutskirts, a sprinkling of khaki, and a considerable number of women,occupied all the chairs, and overflowed into the aisles along the walls.Conversation buzzed; the broad Doric of the county mingled quaintly withthe north-country burr and the cockney twang of the soldiers whom chancehad camped in the neighbourhood.

  "Where be Mr. Eves, I wonder?" said Mrs. Pouncey, presently. She was intruth disappointed. "Mr. Templeton was a nice young gentleman, to besure" (so she afterwards confided to a gossip), "but he was thatquiet--well, you didn't like to speak to him promiscous-like, for fearyou spoiled the high thoughts a-rooting in his mind. But that Mr. Eves,now--well, you weren't afeared of high thoughts with him. He was amerry feller, that he was, full of his fun; and talk--my dear, youshould have heard him; 'twas just as if you poured out a kettle till itrun dry, and the most beautiful long words, I do assure 'ee."

  "Where be Mr. Eves, I wonder?"

  The question roused Templeton from his abstracted scrutiny of theaudience. He glanced at his watch; it was two minutes to seven. Someof the soldiers were already stamping their feet and calling "Time!" Helooked up and down the hall, along the walls, into the doorway. Eveswas not to be seen. A misgiving seized him. Eves had been very keen oncoming to this meeting. Was he contemplating a "rag"? The idea madeTempleton perspire.

  An outburst of cheers and clapping of hands drew his attention from hisuneasy thoughts. The platform party had arrived. Noakes, wearing hischain of office, stepped first on to the platform. He was followed by alean, hungry-looking man with fiery eyes, clean-shaven, his reddish hairbrushed up from the scalp. Templeton recognised the features of afanatical agitator whose portrait had appeared in the picture papers.The local Labour candidate, a burly fellow with a jolly red face andclosely trimmed beard, took his seat beside the speaker of the evening,and the remaining chairs on the platform were occupied by his principalsupporters, male and female.

  The cheers subsided, and the mayor rose. In the silence a high-pitchedvoice enquired from the rear of the hall, "Who said burglar?" Some ofthe audience laughed, some cried "Shame!" and a shrill cry of "It wasn'tme!" and a scuffle announced that the chucker-out had proved more thanequal to the occasion. Noakes smiled blandly until the noise hadceased: then he began.

  "Ladies and gentlemen."

  But there is no need to report his opening speech, which indeed wasunusually brief for a chairman's. Templeton had begun to think betterof him, until, after announcing that he would not stand between theaudience and their great comrade from London, he said that, when thespeech of the evening was finished, he would venture to make a fewremarks by way of applying its principles to local circumstances. Hethen introduced his friend and comrade, and sat down.

  Nor is it worth while, perhaps, to follow the "comrade from London"through his hour's declamation. "The fellow could speak," saidTempleton, afterwards, "and what he said wasn't all rot. But it wasfull of the most hopelessly unpractical ideas, streaked with a vein ofbitterness against every thing and every body, and absolutely vitiatedfor me by the assumption that every rich man is a knave, and every poorman a martyr. Noakes ought to have let well alone, but he tried to dotthe i's and simply provoked Eves's question. If he had closed themeeting after the big speech, there'd have been no trouble."

  Whether it was that the bucolic mind moved too slowly to keep pace withthe orator's flying periods, or that the townsmen from London and theNorth were spell-bound by his fervid eloquence, or simply that thegrowing heat of the hall induced lethargy; certain it is that themeeting was quite orderly and decorous during the great speech. Notuntil the chairman was again on his feet did trouble arise, and that wasdue to a simple question put by Eves. But we must go back a little.

  When Eves descended into the furnace room, and released the stoker, hestripped off coat, waistcoat and collar, rolled up his shirt-sleeves,and started energetically upon his self-assumed task. Hardly twominutes had elapsed when he heard a rasping voice behind him.

  "That's the way. Keep it going steady, my man. There's a thermometeron the wall just inside the hall; run up every now and again and take alook at it: never let it drop below 60 deg.."

  "Ay sure," said Eves, counterfeiting the local brogue, and Noakes, whohad been standing on the bottom step, went away gratified that hisorders were being carried out so well.

  "Not below 60 deg.!" said Eves under his breath. "Sixteen degrees togo! Well, it's a long, long way to Tipperary, but my heart is _there_!"And he ladled coal and coke into the furnace with the fresh enthusiasmof an amateur.

  It occurred to him that if he was to slip up into the hall for thepurpose of examining the thermometer it would be just as well to lookthe part he was playing. So he smeared his face and arms, and what wasvisible of his shirt, with coal dust, much assisted by the dampness ofhis perspiring skin.

  He paid his first visit to the thermometer just as the meeting opened.It hung on the wall near a group of Tommies who had been unable toobtain seats. They eyed him with a certain humorous sympathy. Thethermometer registered 62 deg..

  During the hour-long oration Eves was up and down several times, notingwith satisfaction that the mercury was steadily rising, y
et a littledoubtful whether it would reach the critical point before the close ofthe meeting. He noticed towards the end of the hour that the heat wastelling on some members of the audience. Women were fanning themselves;two or three plethoric farmers had fallen asleep: all the Tommies hadunbuttoned their tunics. "Some fug, mate!" one of them remarked in astage whisper. Eves only smiled in answer; he had seen that the mercurynow touched 74 deg., and having stoked up the furnace to its fullcapacity, was satisfied that he could do no more, and stood among thesoldiers.

  The great speech ended in wild and whirling words: the speaker sat downamid applause, and Noakes arose.

  "Now, my friends, we've heard a terrible fine speech, that we have, andI agree with every word of it. Afore I call upon our candidate--he'llbe our member to-morrow--to propose a vote of thanks to our comrade,I've a thing or two to say for to bring it home to the hearts o' the menand women o' Pudlington. Capitalism, as he truly said, is the deadlypoison as is driving a nail into the roots o' the nation: I couldn't saybetter nor that. Well, then, neighbours all, what I do say is, don't'ee go and vote for no capitalist as belongs to a covey of profiteers,birds of prey as peck out the vitals o' the widder and the orphan. Ah,neighbours! my heart bleeds as I think o' the poor lone widder woman aspays dear for her bread, and can't get no cheese, scraping to pay therate collector as he----"

  "Who raised Widow Pouncey's rent?" came a clear voice from the back ofthe hall.

  The mayor paused, and cast a swift glance in the direction of thequestioner. He had recognised the voice, and sought for thatwell-remembered figure in officer's khaki. The somnolent audience wasroused, every head was turned, many people had risen from their seats.Mrs. Pouncey, who had been dozing, her head constantly wobbling overtowards Templeton's shoulder, suddenly sat erect, and exclaimed with acry of delight: "That's Mr. Eves at last, bless him!" Eves himself,having launched his question, and ascertained that the mercury stood at75 deg., turned with a smile towards the eager Tommies who wanted toknow all about Widow Pouncey.

  Noakes recovered from the shock before the first thrill of excitementhad passed off.

  "'Tis low manners to interrupt," he said in his smoothest tones, stilltrying to discover Eves's whereabouts, but in vain. "I was a-going tosay----"

  "Answer the question!" came in a chorused roar from the soldiers. "Whoraised Widow Pouncey's rent?"

  "Shall I tell 'em, sir?" whispered Mrs. Pouncey.

  "No, no!" advised Templeton, anxious to avoid publicity. "Better saynothing."

  "Ay, I be that shy, and the room so terrible hot."

  "As chairman of this meeting," said Noakes, with a patient smile, "Irule that questions can't be asked now."

  "Who--raised--Widow--Pouncey's--rent?" sang the Tommies, to the tune of"Here we suffer grief and pain" _da capo_.

  "Who was it, mate?" asked one of them.

  "I dare say he'll tell us presently," said Eves, "if you keep it up alittle longer."

  He had his eyes on the thermometer.

  The "comrade from London" got up and spoke earnestly in Noakes's ear,while the chorus continued. The mayor gave a sickly smile and held uphis hand. There was silence.

  "My friend on my right," said the mayor, "reminds me as there's nothingmore powerful than the truth."

  "Righto!" yelled the Tommies. "Who--raised----"

  "_Nobody!_" shouted the mayor. "'Tis a lie!"

  "What's a lie?" cried one of the men. The others looked enquiringly atEves.

  "I say 'tis a lie!" repeated the mayor. "Mrs. Pouncey pays me fiveshilling a week, the same as she's paid----"

  He stopped, for three parts of the way down the hall there rose a stoutfigure, with face flushed and bonnet awry. There was a moment'sbreathless silence, then Mrs. Pouncey, with forefinger outstretchedtowards the mayor, spoke out.

  "Ay, the same as I've paid honest for twenty year, afore ever you comeinto the town, and 'twas you as said 'twould be doubled as soon asParlyment lets you, if not afore, and not a word of a lie in it, Mr.Noakes."

  The old woman collapsed into her seat, amid murmurs of "Shame!"

  "Good old Mrs. Pouncey!" "Who said profiteer?" "Noakes raised WidowPouncey's rent!" "Chuck him out!" "Get out, old crocodile!"

  The hall rang with various cries. Eves, smiling broadly, glanced at thethermometer The mercury touched 76 deg.. Noakes leant forward over thetable, and shaking his fists, roared:

  "As chairman of this meeting, and Mayor of Pudlington, here I be, andhere I bide."

  He started back suddenly, putting a finger between his collar and hisneck, and looking upward. Next moment he dropped his head and brushed adrop of water from his nose. Several of the platform party turned theirfaces up, started back, and upset their chairs. Two or three thinstreams of water, as from the eyelets in the spray of a shower bath,were descending from the unplastered ceiling. Noakes edged a little tothe left, and was opening his mouth again, when with a hiss and clatterlike a heavy shower of rain upon a glass house, the whole contents ofTempleton's experimental tank poured down between the laths of thematchboard. Noakes gasped and spluttered, the ladies of his partyshrieked, all the occupants of the platform stampeded like a flock ofsheep, overturning their chairs, obstructing one another in their madflight for the stairs. For one moment of amazement the audience wassilent; then a roar of inextinguishable laughter broke from nearly threehundred throats, whistles and cat-calls resounded, the Tommies lookedround for the stoker, whom, by some obscure instinct or intuition, theyconnected with the catastrophic shower. But Eves had slipped away.

  "THE WHOLE CONTENTS OF TEMPLETON'S EXPERIMENTAL TANKPOURED DOWN."]

  A special Election Edition of the _Pudlington Echo_ appeared next day,and was bought up eagerly by the crowds who, in spite of the pouringrain, had flocked into the town to record their votes. The Editor hadfilled half a column with a descriptive paragraph in his best style.