THE HAPPY HUTMAN

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9623, 31 March 1917, Page 8

THE HAPPY HUTMAN

PROFESSOR AS BARMAN CHEERFUL BECAUSE USEFUL. He was a professor at the farthest north university in Europe when tho war broke out. On the night when I first found him, writes Ernest Rhys, in the “Manchester Guardian,” he tv ns selling biscuits and cigarettes in his hut to some R.A. men who had been drafted hack. It was “some weather’’ outside, as the sergeant said —liji.il, rain, wind, squalls, tempest; and the tattoo on the roof of the hut was like the noise of many kettledrums. But tvithin was the rude comfort that goes with a dry plank and a warm fog of tobacco, so thick that you might smoko hy merely inhaling the air. It war still early for the big run on the hut, but it was well filled; and as it was near one of tho hugest dock basins in Franco, the customers that drifted in were of all sorts. Four Chinese sailor-boys coma in, as 1 stood beside [Tie hutraim, and said something labial, lie handed them a choice of those small penny biscuit packets, tight as a cartridge, which are part of tho good grub sold at these Y.M.C.A. bars; and then they- wanted to do a deal in tobacco, because it was cheap, which could not be. They went off in their llsf-slippers, silent, almost ghostlike-, after the. loud clump of tho British army-hoot on the plank-flooring. “You get used to their noise,’’ said the hutman, as tho storm on the roof died down'and a fresh set of men came tramping in- Ho pointed to tho other end of the hut where stood a small stage hung with red all round: “When tho other day wo had ‘Macbeth,’ with only three or tour in tho cast and Miss Lena AsKw-ell playing Lady Macbeth, you could have heart your heart beat; tiro place was bewitched.’’ As he spoke it struck mo tho effect of that proscenium without scenery or rootlights was liko enough to the old Globe over the Thames when Shakespeare was alive. At this moment the stage was tho orchestra. A piano stood on it, and a good musician —organist in a famous church in other days—was touching tho keys. Another man stood below, tuning up his hddle against a rehearsal for next Saturday night s concert. To the left small billiard table gave a spot of green to tile cartoon; the rest tended under the electric lights to the war monochrome —khaki. An impressionist, a curious colourist, might paint it for you; you could hardly capture that blurred sensation in words. HARD SMOKING—-HIGH THINKING.

A week later the hufuhan had arranged a Wednesday evening for a sturdy circle of men, w! io voted for a I/wdon night, Xt turned into a free debate, growing out of a recent lecture on Old London and Old Blighty, and tho new London and tho new Blighty that might bo built after tho war. For it is a good sign that tho intellectual Tommy thinks much of tho construction and reconstruction which be trusts'will follow this dire business of saving the Old Country, 'lire debate involved such topics as tho Boar’s Hoad Tavern, the old stage and the now, tho sanitation of cities, and the ideals of citizens like Dickens, Inigo Jones, Sir Hugh Middleton, and Sir Christopher Wren. It consumed much smoke, and the small room, which had been cold to begin with, was hot as an oven when tho call camo to shut up for the night at 9 o’clock, for every chair and corner had been filled. Meanwhile, the main business had •been going on full blast in the big hut adjoining. There was a gymnastic display on the bars, with four tough and intrepid Tommies, in stock-ing-foot, following an instructor in the most amassing exploits. Logs and arms, feet and hands, wont flying about in the baccy fog as if they were only a collective property, not related to anyone in particular. It was as fantastic a scene, backed by the red stage trappings, as yon could wish to see. The bluff and rod, the beniisted lights/ the struck matches and glowing pipes, and the brown-pink and brown-red of some faces counted for a good deal in the effect. The hutman was too used to these things to notice them; ho was too busy, moreover, as a rule. Three ladies were his helpers behind tho long counter, and often it happened they could not help their customers fast enough. At one end of tho bar, 8 or 10 paces long, stood the nrna of tea and hot water- Tea. Horlick, and oso were tho great drinks; coffee has got too dear for everyday use. Behind and under the counter were huge troughs which hold bread, cut cake, biscuits, cigarettes, baccy, pipes, dolly-cakes, tho toothsome morsel that some men call “five steps to tho grave,” along with notepaper, postcards, Christmas cards, etc. When a play, a lantern show, a concert, or a camp lecture is forward the bar shuts down for 'die time being; draughts, chess, and billiards stop; and the four or five hundred men turn their seats and benches round and make the best audience in the world. This Y.M.O.A. hut, Tike others, has a snug sleeping berth — compact as a sea captain’s cabin. At night, when the last customer has gone and everything is shut up, the silence is like that of a calm night at sea.

BATS AND REST. After closing time a car takes off the other attendants, all except the hutman and the cook-man. His three daily fellow-workers, ladies of the hut (who at home live in English country are whirled away through miles or mud to the neighbouring town. Then the two are left alone, save for the rats —enormous familiar beasts —“as big as a ca-alf!” as one Celtic hero expressed it, when ho saw one sauntering past. The same observer told me that since the siege of Paris, when rats were a staple article of diet, the French have the greatest dislike to kill a rat unless it is for the stewpot. They have grown superstitious about these fat loafers. Not so “Kitcb,’’ the terrier, who has been in the trenches at the Marne, and now been presented to the hut by a detachment of fellow-survivors, who brought him down to the base. While “Bitch” sleeps at the hutman’s hed-foot the rats will not he so fond of that corner of Young Men’s Christendom. On my last night the hutman asked me to stay to supper—porridge, tinned tongue, French rolls, and, for a treat, a cup of coffee. Then betook me out to put me on the road hack to headquarters. It was pretty cold; the first snow had come, after a thuadeiSto/JB put sf &casP»j,_tbe.BejvB a

from the front that day had been none too good; there was a damp spot in Iris cubicle, and he might easily have groused about rheumatism and the rest to a sympathetic soul. But ho did not. ' He was a happy man. Most of us, ho said, were too tied up with cares and affairs, society and politics, money and mixed ideas. Here you were cut down to a hermit. As we parted, I wondered what sort, of prayers the hutman prayed with his soldiers. And then I 'thought. Ah. well, he has found his magic herb. To lahour; is to pray.