FAILURES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1201, 8 March 1895, Page 10

FAILURES.

By A. E. Pain in To-Day. * Tant que voua n’aurez rion de mieux a embrassor, tachez de voua faire illusion.’ —La Jbie fait peur. We were at school together. I was the show-hoy of our *school. I did the brilliant things, wrote the clever essays, made the most successful passes. It was inevitable that I was to succeed in the world. Succeed? —no, the world was mine for the asking. As for Bontor, who thought of him ? He was near the end of the form ; I remember him well. He wore dirty collars, hadn’t much money, and was dense in school. He played football passably, and was banned as having commercial instincts. Ha- had low tricks of sale and barter with boyish tools and toys, which afterwards seemed less useful and delightful than at first, generally having some skiliully-hidden flaw. It was supposed that ho would go into his father’s office, the elder Bontor being a merchant (rag-merchant, our boyish wit said) in the City. As for brilliancy or success —ridiculous ! Bontor left school before I did. His father had gone bankrupt, it appeared. Not much notice was taken of his leaving. He was nobody. I left not Very long after; when I had finished the course, in fact. ' The head j master took leave of me in a very neat and laudatory spoeeh ; expressed regret that I was not going to a University; expected to hear of my success ; and, in fact, seemed to be gratoful for my having condescended to shine in his school. The boys cheered me whpn I wont home. I should have liked to have gono to Cambridge, certainly. It seemed the obvious next step for a young man of my powers. I had quite a quarrel with my father when he said he could not afford to let me go. It was my right, I thought, and I resented the loss of it. However, it was impossible, and, after all, a University education was not, so absolutely necessary in those days. As my mother, reminded me, to a young man of my genius the world would open at a touqh. 1 agreed with her, and wrote an essay: a luminous and brilliant essay. It was not published. My father began to look glum when I had been at home twelve months, and was still at his expense. I pointed out, and, I still think, rightly, that it was not my fault, but the world’s. He was illogical, and showed me his bank-book. tTpon this persuasion, I swallowed my pride, and wrote a novel. It took four: inonths to write, and was not published. My father and brothers became covertly sarcastic. My father even wished openly that I had not been brilliant. All this was hard, but I succumbed, and tried hard for employment on the best newspapers, then on'magazines, then on minor papers, and, lastly, even .on the ruck of weekly dust-heaps. Brilliancy was at a discount. • . y

I, left homo after this, at my father’s request, and tried to sell my novel again, but still without success. After awhile I became a Devil ; I grubbed among books for more successful-but less talented men. I could be "seen daily at the;British Museum.

I was sitting in Staplq Inn one under the trees,' This was some years after I had loft home, arid I had not yet ‘arrived.’ On the other hand, I had not then even began to doubt myself. At that time I thought my hard luck was the usual tempering process which my biographical knowledge assured me all men of genius had to suffer. I was waiting for the world'to acknowledge me. Now, I have got past-that stage ; l am sarcastic at the mention of successful men, and satirical , as to the world?s favour. 1 I-was tired when I sat down in Staple Inn. I had been walking about all day to pass the time, and was feeling hungry. It was early autumn, and I should have liked an overcoat, and missed my waistcoat. There was a young man sitting on the seat by me, eating a saveloy ; a pen-knife and a roll were in a piece of paper by his side. He was seedy, but well brushed his. boots were down at heel, and his nails black. His felt hat had been inked. I had been sitting some minutes, when he suddenly stopped munching, and said, ‘ Hallo, Grant!’ I looked round in some surprise, and he continued, ‘ Don’t you know me?’ ‘ No,’ I said, with some asperity; as he was a commonlooking man. ‘ Don’t you remember Bontor, of St. Greg’s ?’ he said. I was half inclined to decline to recognise him; but even Bontor was companionship, and I need not know him if I got better off. We talked —or, rather, he talked. He told me he was a clerk in an office in Gray’s Inn road —not doing very well, he said. ‘ You see,’ said he, ‘ our boss is a bit of a screw, and he believes in buying in the cheapest market. He bought me there, and I am dirt cheap. That’s why I am lunching out here. Have a bit?’ ‘No, thank you !’ I said, coldly. ‘I have lunched.’ That was not true. ‘As you please, old chap. How’s things with you ?’ ‘ I am doing fairly well, thanks,’ I replied. ‘Of course,’ he acquiesced. I looked up sharply, suspecting sarcasm, but he was looking at a sparrow. ‘ You were always a brilliant chap, and were sure to get on.’ This —whether sarcasm or honest belief—was rather more than I could bear. I-got up and said I must go. Said Bontor, ‘ I’ve got half an hour tp-spare/sd I’ll walk with you. We walked along Holborn, he with his hands in his pockets. He laughed contentedly over his troubles, and told me shamelessly of his many shifts to live. This suited mo, as it loft me no necessity to talk. It seemed he was the Bame Bontor as at school. ‘ Make a bit sometimes,’ he said. ‘Know a thing or two, knocking about. Quiet chaps, like you, know a lot, but don’t know where to get things. I do, and so I make a bit. Pipes—this anything in your line?’ and he pulled out a flashy meerschaum in a rod case. I sa-d c ISo,’ and h.e continued, 4 1 s’pose not; nothiiig under Murias for you, eh? Don’t smoke myself ; too expensive. I sell these things, though —100 per cent., and not bad value, after all. All I make that way I put away ; do something .with it some day. At present I live on my sorew—or less, if possible. Look here!’ ‘Well!’l said. 1 , ~ ‘ See my front and cuffs ? Look very well, don’t they P Grand idea —Cartridge paper . Gentlemanly appearance at precious little cost. Good wrinkle ; but no good to you, of course. ’Ave a drink ?’ , I said ‘No,’ arid held out my hand. Oh, come and havd a drink,’ he urged, ana I yielded. The habit of going without lunch is a hard one to acquire, and I felt faint. Besides, I could pay him back some day. We went into a private bar in Chancery lane, and had some ale. He said, of course, I usually drank better tack than: that, but he couldn’t spring it. A man came in as wo talked; florid with drink, and affable. ‘ Excuse me a minute,’ said Bontor. Directly afterwards I saw him speaking to the stranger; the pipe was held

up for inspection, refused, re-offered, haggled over, and, finally, changed hands. Bontor came back gleefully, chinking a half-crown and a florin. ‘ Have another ?’ said he; but my pride liad by “this time returned. I declined, perhaps a little too haughtily, and we ported - «...

I was going to say that things went from bad to worse with me, but that would not be exact. They stayed as they were, and I almost forgot to be discontented. I still lived on the fag-ends of literature. I took tip a scrap of the Daily Telegraph one day, in a Lockhart’s Cocoa Booms—it must have been some years after I met Bontor. It was only the advertisement sheet ; but I read it, as men in my case do. I read the prospectus of a new company. A valuable proprietary article was to be sold, it seemed. The vendor was to receive ,£60,000 for his rights, half m cash and half in fully paid-up shares. Further down, I saw that Mr Philip Gloster Bontor was to join th.o board after allotment. I laid down the scrap of paper and walked out. Within a hundred yards I met Bontor. I had no desire to stop. It might have seemed invidious under the circumstances ; but, almost involuntarily, I halted. I thought a shade of annoyance crossed his face ; but ho stopped, and held out his hand. He was portly now, with dark moustache and hard eyes. He had lived hard, but looked well. He had not the manner of a gentleman, however, as I flatter myself I always had, even with my misfortunes. He was pompous but somewhat condescending, as he said, ‘ Why Grant ! what are you doing in the City ? Thought you would be somewhere about Bedford Park or Kensington. Don’t hear of you much lately. How goes it ?’ I muttered something about ‘ abstruse researches,’ when he looked at me keenly, and said coarsely—• ‘ Not doing well, eh? Don’t look it! I said I. was doing very well, but he continued hurriedly— < . ‘ Know a man named Schnitzel —-going to start a new society paper? Want a job ?’ I was tempted to say ‘Yes,’ but to such a cad as Bontor I could not humble myself. I said, proudly, ' No !’ . ‘As you please,’ he replied. ‘ Well, time s money! Good-bye.’ - . ■ I walked away, without answering. I had expected kinder treatment from an old schoolfellow. ...... * * *

I saw Bontor’s name occasionally in odd newspapers after that. He seemed to be getting on. I found he was married, and lived at Prince’s Gate. He had a yacht, and moors which the Prince of Whies shot over. All this took place during the five years succeeding my second meeting with him. Things were poorly with me then, through no fault of m,v own, lam sure. Men did not like me to work for them ; there was a conspiracy against me —one impudent fellow even told me I was lazy—a lie ! I did not drink, either —at least, not much. I could not help contrasting bitterly the different fates of myself and Bontor, a man with not a quarter my abilities. I felt the unevenness of Fortune, and cursed the gods. One day I looked at the London Directory in a bar in Fleet street, and found Bontor’s City address. I got there late in the afternoon, and waited outside for some time. I thought perhaps he might help me. At last ho came out with another man. I drew myself up and hummed, to see if he would recognise me and speak. He stared at me coldly, and barely nodded. I was mortified, but went next day. As he came out, I forced myself to raise my hat. He barely stopped, and said — ‘ Well, what do you want ?’ I reminded him of qur school-days, and asked him to assist me. He looked at me coldly, and said — ‘ I offered you work; and you declined it. You are’ lazy—your hands show it; you are sloven —your dress shows it; you drink —your face shows it. I cannot help you.’ This was bitter and hard for me to boar — me, a gentleman. I wept that night, as I told a man whom I met in a public-house how shamefully my old school-fellow had treated me. # # # . *

That was ten years ago. Bontor is M.P., J.P., and several other things now. He served his term as Lord Mayor last year. I went to his office to ask him for assistance several times after our last meeting, but could never see him. Yesterday he bought a box of-matches from me in Cheapside, and wouldn’t recognise me. Bontor is a cad !