A SHORT STORY.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 June 1926, Page 7

A SHORT STORY.

A PEG OR TWO. THE BASEMENT O>F A BULLY. (By Will Scott). “There’s nothing anybody else lias done Hurt I can't do better.” Thus the great Bernes. And he would request you to pick an example, and sure enough lie would go one, two or three better than the example. He really cculd do things better. Not that that helped litble Mills to love him the more. Little AHUs.

Little Mills and the great big Bernes, David and Goliath. The nobody and the somebody.

That was the irritating thing—the most irritating thing—about Bernes. He was so obviously a Somebody—so glaringly, so wilfully, so maliciously a Somebody. He thrust himself and his achievements upon you, and if you yourself were not a big man he ground .your puny works to powder beneath ills' callous heel and left you wit'll the feeling that you had never existed. No man on this earth lias ever yet been loved. as Bernes was loved by Bernes. He was. mad abo.ut himself.

You remember him? “The Great Bernes! The World's Greatest Magical Act, 'by the World's Greatest Illusionist. The Alan Without a Rival. Staggering! Bewildering!” Yes, that was the fellow. A dominating, blustering. swaggering,’ offensive mountain of conceited flesh. But clever! That was the snag of it. He was clever. When he vowed he could beat the next best to a shadow there really was something in it. I remember that once Horace Aface. the conjurer, improved on the old rabbit trick by producing three rabbits out of the. liat where hitherto only one had come. Immediately Bernes took , a - smaller hat and produced a "veiita : lflt<‘ farmyard. Not that he desited, to introduce the. trick into his act.tbut solely in order to make it perfectly plain to Aface that lie alone was supreme in the business.- That year Carmel was producing a live lion out of a securely locked and strapped travelling trunk. Promptly Bernes [.nt on an illusion that, eventually sent fioor Carmel out of the business. Bernes produced a couple of live elephants out. of a suit-case. “Anything.” he said, with a malicious grin—

“anything that anybody else lias ever done. Just show me, and I'll do it better.”

I was working under him at the time, along with little Alills, the insigrAfioant, and half-a-dozen others. We were guards of the harem, underkeeper of the performing seal, and what not. We would average about thirty shillings a week, with expenses between us —and glad to have it. Less than the dust beneath his chariot wheel.

We had seen something of his astonishing bombast when we Joined the show in town; and we had heard about it plenty before that. But we needed the work, and so we set out on tour with him.

“There’s nothing anybody . else lias done that I can’t do better. ’ That was the rhythm of the speed wc used to make in the great touring Daimler he. used for rushing us round from town to town. And once w’

engine shut of suddenly we her going on chanting it, and wc .. w he must have been chanting it all the way to the drone of the engine. It was his soul’s tune. “There’s nothing anybody else has done that I can’t do better.” And when it stopped at last lie turned and swore at little Alills. He hated little Alills for being little. He hated all little men, and never left off saying so. And poor Mills was so very little and so very ineffectual. “Our hatred is mutual, my dear yills,” he’d say. “Aibu’d leave me if it wasn’t that you'd find it so cursed difficult to get another job, and. that you've got an invalid wife to send money to, ch? What a little man you are Alills! How dependent on me! You nra-kc me laugh! One day I'll get annoyed with seeing you about and IT- fire you. Then what will you do? Get out of my sight!” There wasn’t a man of us who. didn’t want to bring him down to earth and b'e®' his sneering mouth bite the’dust. But there wasn’t one of us who could do it. He was six feet-two and broad in proportion, and the cleverest man we knew. We never could think of a retort lie couldn’t cap, thereby making us look like worms.

And then at last up rose Alills. Little, ineffectual, trodden-on Mills The worm that turned.

We had been playing at Eastbourne a I’d were due on the Monday at Dover. On the Sunday night, rather late, we all set off in the Daimler, going along the coast. We got through Folkestone all right, up that hill that is like, a house side, and were rattling along the ’ ciliff-road to Dover, all pointing out..,the lights of the French coast and chatting, when suddenly the car stopped. 9 Bernes got out and inspected things «nd then he announced that the trouble was lack of petrol. We .were then about four miles out of Dover.

“When another ear passes we can fell II,” said Bernes. But though wc wailed fully half an hour no other car came our way. It was well on to midnight and the chances were against us Most of us were strolling about in tlie road to keep warm. Bernes was stamping up and down, when suddenly he caugjit sight of little Mills and came to a stop. He was much irritat* e.l by the long wait and just dying to lash somclbody with his tongue. What better subject than Mills? ‘‘Mills;’ he thundered, “I’m hungry.” “Yes, sir?’’ said little Mills. “Three miles back we passed an inn. They are sure to have food there. Go back and bring a hamperful. Bring focal for 4xll of us. It may be hours before we get down into Dover.” Tittle Mills stared. “Now. sir? he asked. “All that way?" “All that way. Yea I” “But —” “Oil* you go; And at once, or you leave my employment!” M e expected to see flashes of lightning spurt out of him. Little Mills jumped Lack like a man scorched; and then without another word he toddled back along the road by which he had come. Tn three minutes his footsteps had faded to nothing. “Darned shame!” somebody whispered. “Somebody ought to kill old Bernes off/” said another.

But as there wag none elever enough to humble him to the dust we had to let it pass. A few of us wondered if little Alills would turn up again. Had it been us, we . vowed, we’d have seen Bernes to the devil before we’d have dragged his hamper of food three miles.

However, after a« hour or . two we began to hear the tap-tap of those bumble little feet again, and soon in the moonlight we espied little Alills coming nearer. It seemed about the meekest surrender that any man could make, and we decided that he deserved what was coming to him. That’s how it seemed to us.

“What’s this?” Bernes snapped. ‘I said a hamper —enough for all of u.i. There’s not enough for more than two or three here W'ln'.re did you go?” “I went to the inn,” Alills replied. “Is this all they liadi”

“No.” said Mills. “Then what in—” “I. thought this would be sufficient,” little Alills explained. “You see, sir, I wanted to save unnecessary expense. I thought that if I brought this and left the rest to you—”

“"What arc you talking about?” Bernes stormed. “Well, of course, sir. you're the very cleverest man in all the business,” said little Mills, meekly. “There’s nothing a nybody else has ever done that you can’t do better. And so I thought that if I brought this, as a kind of foundation —” Bernes swore and snatched the package from little Alills and tore it. open and looked. And then he went off like a human explosion. We all looked. And then we exchanged glances and, one by one, began to titter behind our hands. It was the neatest thing that had ever come my way. Afterwards I tcld it to Bullingham at the Dover Empire and he told it to the others. In less than a week it was all over the country and the Great Bernes was the butt of the whale profession. Outsiders got hold of it, and it pretty nearly found its way into the papers. Of course, it cost little Mills his job, but he had seen that coming, and, anyway, it made such a hero .of him—to his great surprise—that he speedily got another and a better post. But the prime thing is that it humbled Bernes for ever. W r e meet him now sometimes; but the 1-flmbast is gone. Me never survived the wide telling of that prime tale. He boasts no more, for fear of setting it on its rounds again. He keeps his great tongue very quiet in the company of smaller men. Occasionally he will be pointed out in the clubs and the story dragged forth for a new-comer’s benefit. Then Bernes will Ayr. “There’s nothing anybody else has done that I can’t do better.” Nc, he never says that now. It’s many years since he said it the last time, upon the cliff behind Dover.

I beg your pardon? What was m the little parcel that Alills brought back from the inn?

Of course. I never told you. did I? Five loaves and two fishes.