IDLE THOUGHTS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8523, 16 January 1906, Page 1

IDLE THOUGHTS.

♦ (By JEROME K. JEROME.) Author of "Three Men in a Boat," "Paul Kelver," etc. [All Rights Reserved.] No. K. A friend of mine thinks it a pity that we have lost our tails. He argues it would be so helpful if, like the dog, we possessed a tail 'that wagged when, we were pleased, that stuck out straight when we were feeling mad. " Now, do conic and see us again 'soon," says our hostess; "don't wait to be asked. Drop in whenever you are passing." Wetake her at her word. The servant who answers our -knocking says she will gee. There is a scuttling of feet, a murmur of hushed voices, a swift opening and closing of doors. We are shown into the drawing-room, the maid, breathless from her search, one supposes, having discovered her mistress is at home. We .stand upon the hearthrug, clinging to our hat and stick as to things friendly and (sympathetic. The suggestion forcing itself upon us is that of a visit to the dentist. Our hostess enters wreathed in smiles. Is she really pleased to see us, or is she saying to hex-self, " Drat the man 1 Why must he choose the very morning I had intended to fix up the clean curtains?" • But she has to pretend to be delighted, and ask us to stay to lunch- It would save, us hours of anxiety could we look beyond her souling face to her tail peeping out saucily from a placket-hole. Is it wagging, or is it standing out rigid at right angles from her skirt? But I fear by this time we should have schooled them to wag enthusiastically the while we were growling savagely to ourselves. Man put on insincerity to hide his mind when he made nimeelf a garment of fig-leaves to hide his body. THE HALL MARK OF SINCERITY. One (sometimes wonders whether he has gained so very much. A small acquaintance of mine is bei.ng : -brought up on strange principles. Whether ins parents are mad or not is a matter or opinion.. Their ideas are certainly peculiar. They encourage, him rather than otherwise to tell the truth on all occasions. lam watching the experiment with interest. If you ask him what he thinks of you he tells you. Some people don't aek him a second time. They say, " What a very rude little boy you are!" "But you insisted upon it," he explains; I told you I'd rather not say.' It does not comfort them in the least. m Yet the result is, he is already an influence. People who have braved the ordeal, and emerged successfully, go' about with swelled head. Politeness would seem to have been invented for the comfort of the undeserving. We lot fall our rain of compliments upon the unjust and the just without distinction. Every hostess has provided us ..with the most charming evening of our life. Every gueet has conferred a .like blessing upon us by accepting our invitation. I remember a dear good lady in a small south German town organising for one winter's day a sleighing party to the woods. A sleighing party differs from a picnio. The people who want each other cannot go off together and lose themselves, leaving the bores to find only each other. You are in close company from early morn till late at night. We were to drive twenty miles, six in a sledge, dine together in a lonely whirtschaft, dance aud sing songs, and afterwards drive home by moonlight. Success depends on every member of the company fitting into his place and assisting in the general harmony. Our chieftainess was fixing the final arrangements the evening before in the drawing-room of tlie pension. One place was still to spare. " Tompkins!" Two voices uttered the name ♦simultaneously; three others immediately took up the refrain. Tompkins was our man, the cheeriest, merriest companion imaginable-. Tompkins, who had only arrived that afternoon, was pointed out to our chieftainess. We could hear his good-tempered laugh from where we sat, grouped together at the other end of the room. THE WRONG MAN. Oar chieftainess rose, and made for him direct.'. Alas! she was a shortsighted lady — we had not thought of that. She returned in triumph, followed by a dismal-looking man I had met the year before in the Black Forest, and had hoped never to meet again. I drew her aside. "Whatever you do," I said, "don't ask " (I forget his name. One of these days I'll forget him altogether and be hatv pier. I will call him Johnson). "He would turn the whole thing into a funeral before we were half-way there. I climbed a mountain with him once. He makes you forget all your other troubles ; that is the only thing he is good for." . But who is Johnson?" site demanded. " Why, that's Johnson, I explained- — "the thing you've brought over. Why on earth didn't you leave it alone? : Where's your woman's jnstinct?" "Great heavens!" she cried, " I thought it was Tompkjns. I've invited him, and he's accepted." She was a stickler .for politeness, and would not hear of his being told that he had been mistaken for an agreeable man, but that the error, most fortunately, had been discovered in time. He started a row with the driver of the 6ledge, and devoted the journey outwards to an argument on the fiscal question. He told the proprietor of the. hotel what he thought of German cooking, and insisted on haying the windows open. One of our party— a German student — sang " Deutsohland, Duetschland über ales,": which led to a heated discussion on the. proper place of sentiment in lit-

I eralure, and a general denunciation by Johnson of Teutonic characteristics iv general. We did not danep. Johnson said that, of course, he spoke only for himself, but the sight of middleaged ladies and gentlemen catching hold of each, other round the middle and jigging about like children was to him rather a saddening spectacle, but to the young such gambolling was natural. Let the young ones indulge themselves. Only four of our party could claim to bo under thirty with any hope of success. They were kind enough not to impress the fact upon us. Johnson enlivened the journey back by a e&arcliing analysis of enjoyment : Of what dad it really consistf? Yet, on wishing him "Good-night/^ our chieftainess thanked him foir his company in precisely the same terms sh-o would have applied to Tompkins, who, by un«flagging good humour and tact, would have made the day worth remembering to us all for all time. THE CRIME OF CREDULITY. A young friend of mme — a man of good family— contracted a mesalliance, that is, he married tho daughter of a Canadian farmer, a frank, amiable girl, bewitchingly pretty, with more character in her little finger than some girls possess in their wjiole body. 1 met him one day, some three months after his return to London. "Well, I asked hhn, " how is she shaping i 1 " She is the dearest girl in the world-, he answered. " She has only got one fault; she believes wlvat people say. " She will get over that," I suggested. "I hope she does," he replied; "its awkward at present." "I car, see it leading her into difficulty,-' I agreed. "She is not accomplished," he continued. He seemed to wish to talk about it to a sympathetic listener. "She neve<r pretended to be accomplished. I did not marry her for her accomplishments. But now she .is beginning to think she must have been accomplished all the time, without knowing it. She- plays the piano like a schoolgirl on a parents' visiting day. She told them she did not play— not worth listening to — at least, she began by telling them co, They insisted that she did, that they had heard about her playing, and were ■thirsting to Hear her. Sho is good nature itself. She would stand on .her head if she thought it would give real joy to anyone. She took it they really wanted to heaa* her, and so let 'em have it. They tell her that her touch is something quite out of the common — which is the truth, if only she could understand it — why did she never think of taking up music as a profession? By this time she is wondering Herself that she never did. They are not satisfied with hearing her once. They ask for more, and they get it. The other evening I had to keep quiet on my chair while she thumped through four pieces one after tho other, including the Beethoven Sonata. We knew it was the Beethoven Sonata. She told us before she started it was goiug to be the Beethoven Sonata, otherwise, for all any of us could have guessed, it might have been the ' Battle of Prague.' We all sat round with" wooden faces, staring at our boots. Afterward those of them that couldn't get near onoiigh^o her jt© , ma3v*\. «- fool oi! her, crowded "round me. Wanted to know why I had never told tnem I had discovered a musical prodigy. I'll lose my temper oiiie cfay and p >v ll somebody's nose, I feel I shall. She'' 3 got a recitation ; whether intended v; bo serious or comic I have never been able to make up my mind, iiie way she gives it confers upon it all the disadvantages of both. It is chiefly concerned with an angel and a. child. But a dog conies into it about the middle, and from that point onward it is impossible to tell who is talking-—some-times you think it is the angel, and then it sounds more like a dog. The child is the easiest to follow: it talks all the ' time through its nose. If I have heard that recitation once I have heard it fifty times; and now she is busy learning an encore. " What hurts me most," he went on-, 'is haying to watch her making herself ridiculous. Yet what am I to do? If I explain things to her she will be miserable and a6hamed of herself; added to which her frankness — perhaps her greatest charm — will be murdered. The trouble runs through everything. She won't take my advice about her frocks. She laughs and repeats to me — well, the lies that other women tell a girl who is spoiling herself by dressing absurdly; especially when she is a pretty girl, and they are anxious she 1 should go on spoiling herself. She bought a hat last week, one day when I was not with her. It only wants the candles to look like a Christmas tree. They insist on her taking it off so they may examine it more closely, with the idea of having one built like it for themselves; and she site by delighted, and explains to them ,the secret of the thing. We get to parties half an hour before the opening time ; ehe is afraid of being a minute late. They have told her that the party can't begin without her — it isn't worth calling a party till she's there. We are always the last to go. The other people don't matter, but if she goes they will feel the whole thing has been a failure. She is dead for want of sleep, and they are sick and tired of us ; but if I look at my watch they talk as if their hearts were breaking, and she thinks me a brute for wanting to leave friends so passionately attached to us both. " Why do we all play this silly game? What is the sense of it?" he wanted to know. I could not tell him. THE DISCOUNT VALUE OF PRAISE. We pay dearly for our want of sincerity We are denied the payment of praise; it has ceased to have any value. People shake me warmly by the hand and tell me that they like mv books. It only bores me. Not that I am superior to compliment— nobody is— -but .because I cannot be sure that they mean it. They would say dust the same had they never read a line I had written: If I visit a house arid find a book of mine open face downwards on the window seat, it sends no thrill of pride through my suspicious mind. As likely as not, I tell myself, the following » the conversation that has taken place between ™v host and hostess the day before Sy arrival :-« Don't forget that man Jerome is coming, down to-morrow." "To-morrow I I wish you would tell me of these'things a little earlier." . ■' I did tell you-told you last week. Your memory gete worse every day." "You nArfainlv never told me, or I should Sve remembered it. Is he anybody iSrtant?" " Oh, no; writes bcoks^' i'Wlint sort of books? — I mean., is he qui^rlpictable?'/ ."Of course or I should not have invited .him. , Ihese sort of people go everywhere nowadays. t£,+Vwvdv have we got any of his wte^bout the house?" "I don't Kink sT I'" V k ? nd *»• « y<>" uJa l«fc me know in time I could have veered one fxoin MudtoW', "Well

"I've got to go to town; I'll make sure of it, and buy one." " Seems a pity to waste money. Won't you be anywhere near Mudie's?" '"'Looks more appreciative to have bougiit a copy. It will do for a birthday present for someone." On the other hand, the conversation may have been very different. My hostess may have said : '**Oh. I am glad he's coming. I have been longing to meet him for years." She may have bought my book on the day of publication, a^id be reading it through for the second time. She may by pure accident have left it on her favourite seat beneath the- window. The knowledge that insincerity is our universal garment has reduced 'all compliment + - meaningless formulee. A lady one even-^ ing at a party drew m&aside.^ The eh^ r guest — a famous writer — had just arrived. " Tell me," she said, " I have so little time for reading, what has he done?" I was on the point of replying when, an inveterate wag, who haa overhoard her, interposed between us. " 'The Cloister and the Hearth, 1 " he told her, " and ' Adam Bede.' " He happened to know the lady well, She had a good heart, but was ever muddleheaded. She thanked that wag with a smile, and I heard her later in the evening boring most evidently that literary lion with elongated praise of ' Ihe Cloister and the Hearth" and "Adam Bede." They were among the few books she had ever read, and talking about them oamo easily to her. She told me afterwards that she had found that literal*? lion a charming man, but — "Welf," she laughed, "he has got a j;ood opinion of himself. He told me he considered both books among the finest in the English language." It is well aluays to make a note of the authors \iame. Some people never do— more particularly playgoers. A well-known cliiniatic author told me he once took a couple of colonial friends to a play of his own. It was after a little dinner at Kettner's ; they suggested the theatre, i and he thought ho would give them a | f;7T*at. He did not -mention to them tL&t he was the author, and they never Jocked at the programme. Thear faces as the play proceeded lengthened; it d : d not seem to be their school of comedy. At the end of the first act they sprang to their feet. " Let's chuck this rot " suggested one. " Let's go to the. Empire, ' T suggested the other. The well-known dramatist followed them onf. He thinks the fault must have been with the dinner.