A SHORT STORY.

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16811, 1 June 1926, Page 14

A SHORT STORY.

A PEQ OR TWO. THE BASEMENT OP A BULLY. (By Will Scott). "There's nothing anybody else has clone that I can't do better." Thus the great Bernes. And he would request you to pick an example, and sure enough he would go one, two or three belter than the example. He really could do things better. Not that that helped little Mills to love him the more. Little Mills. ... Little Mills and the great big Bernes David and Goliath. The nobody and the somebody. That was the irritating thing—the most irritating thing—aiout Bernes. Ho was so obviously a Somebody—so glaringly, so wilfully, so maliciouslv a Somebody. l[ 0 thrust himself and his achievements upon you, and if you yourself were not a big man he ground your puny works to powder beneath his callous heel and left you with the feeling that you had never existed. No man on this earth has ever yet been loved as Bernes was loved by Bernes. He was mad about himself.

You remember him? "The Great Bernes! The World's Greatest Magical Act, by the World's Greatest Illusionist. The Man Without a Rival. Staggering! Bewildering I 1" Yes, that was the fellow. a dominating, blustering, swaggering, offensive mountain of conceited llcsh. 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 Mace, the conjurer, improved on (lie oh! rabbit trick by producing three rabbits out of the hat where hitherto only one had come. Immediately Bernes took a smaller hat and produced a veritable farmyard. Not that lie desired to introduce the trick into his act, but solely in order to make it perfectly plain to Mace that he alone was supreme in the business. ±u,u year Carmol was producing a live lion out of a securely locked and strapped travelling trunk. Promptly Bernes put on an illusion that eventually sent poor Carmcl 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 has ever done. Just show me, and I'll do it better."

I was working under him at the time, along with little Mills, the insignificant, and half-a-dozen others. Wc were guards of the harem, underkeepers of the performing seal, and what not. Wc 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 wc had heard about it plenty before that. But we needed the work, and so wc set out on tour with him.

"There's nothing anybody else has done that I can't do better." That was the rhythm of the speed we used to make in the great touring Daimler he used for rushing us round from town to town. And once when the engine shut off suddenly he heard him going on chanting it, and wc knew 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 he turned and swore at little Mills. He hated little Mills for being little, lie hated all little men, and never left off saying so. And poor Mills was so very little and so very ineffectual. "Uur hatred is mutual, my dear Mills," he'd say. "You'd leave mc 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, eh'.' What a little man you are, Mills! How dependent on mc! You make me laugh ! One day I'll get annoyed with seeing you about and I'll Ore you. Then what will you do? Get out of my sight!" There wasn't a man of us didn't want to bring him down to earth and sec 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 wc knew. Wc never could think of a retort he couldn't cap, thereby making us look like worms.

And then at last up rose Mills. Little, ineffectual, trodden-on Mills The worm that turned. . . ;\Vo had been playing at Eastbourne and were due on the Monday at Dover. On the Sunday night, rather late, we all set off in the Daimler, going along tne coast. We got through Folkestone all right, up that hill that is like a house side, and were rattling along the cliff-road to Dover, all pointing out the lights on the French coast and chatting, when suddenly the car stopped. Bcrnes got out and inspected things and then he announced that the trouble was lack of petrol. We were then about four miles out of Dover.

"When another car passes we can refill," said Bcrnes. But though we waited fully half an hour no other car came out way. It was well on to midnight and the chances were against

Most of us were strolling about in the road lo keep warm. Bcrnes was stamping up and down, when suddenly he caught sight of little Mills and came to a slop. He was much irritated by the long wait and just dying to lash somebody 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 hampcrful. Bring food for all of us. It may be hours before we get down into Dover."

Little Mills stared. "Now, sir?" he asked. "All that way?" "All that way. Yes 1" "But " "Off you go! And at once, or you ler.ve my employment 1"

We expected to sec flashes of lightning spurt out of him. Little Mills jumped back like a man scorched: and then without another word he toddled back along the road by which he had come. In three minutes his footsteps had faded to nothing. "Darned shame!" somebody whispered.

"Somebody ought to kill old Denies off," said another.

Rut as there was none clever enough to humble him lo the dust we had lo let it pass. A few of us wondered ir lit Lie Mills would turn up again. Had it been us, we vowed, we'd have seen Bcrnes to the devil before we'd have dragged his hamper of food three miles.

However, afler an hour or Iwo we began lo hear Ihe tap-lap of those humble little feet again, ami soon in the moonlight we espied little Mills coming nearer. It seemed about the

meekest surrender that any man could make, and we decided that he deserved what was coming lo him. That's howit seemed to us. He went up to Bcrnes and held out a parcel, and for the first time we noticed that it was a smaller, much smaller, parcel than Bcrnes had ordered. "What's this?" Bcrnes snapped. "I said a hamper—enough for all of us. Therc"s not enough for more than two or three here. Where did you go?" "I went to the inn," Mills replied. "Is this all they had?" "No," said Mills. "Then what in " "1 thought this would be sufficient," little Mills explained. "You see, sir, I wanted to save unnecessary expense. I thought that if I brought this and loft the rest to you " "What are 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 nolhing anybody else has ever done that you can't do better. And so I thought that if I brought this, as a kind of foundation— —" Bcrnes swore and snatched the package from little Mills and lore it open ami looked. And I hen he went off like a human explosion. We all looked. And then we exchanged glances and, one by one, began to litter behind our hands. 11 was the neatest thing that had ever come my way. Afterwards I told it to Bullingham at the Dover Empire and he told it to Ihe others. In less than a week it was' all over Ihe country and the Great Bernes was the : butt of tin' whole profession. Out- j siders got hold of il. and it pretty j nearly found its way into the papers, j Of course, it cost little Mills his job, '. but he had seen that coming, and. any- j way, it made such a hero of him—to j his great surprise—that he speedily j got another and a better post. But the prime thing is that it. humbled J Bernes for ever.

We meet him now sometimes; but the bombast is gone. lie never survived the wide telling of that prime l tale. Re boasts no more, for fear of ' setting it on its rounds again. Ho 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 fly. "There's nothing anybody else has done that I can'l do better." No, 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 in the little parcel that Mills brought hack from the inn? Of course. I never told vou, did I? Five loaves and two fishes.