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As a matter of fact, I do not give advice now on any subject." I told this tale to MacShaughnassy. He agreed with me that it was instructive, and said he should remember it. He said he should remember it so as to tell it to some fellows that he knew, to whom he thought the lesson should prove useful. I can't honestly say that we made much progress at our first meeting. It was Brown's fault.
I used at one time to credit Brown with originality for this idea; but as I have grown older I have learned that the theory is a very common and popular one in cultured circles. Brown expostulated with MacShaughnassy. "You speak," he said, "as though literature were the parasite of evil." "And what else is she?" replied the MacShaughnassy, with enthusiasm.
When, however, I told her that my friend Jephson was going to collaborate with me, she remarked, "Oh," in a doubtful tone; and when I further went on to explain to her that Selkirk Brown and Derrick MacShaughnassy were also going to assist, she replied, "Oh," in a tone which contained no trace of doubtfulness whatever, and from which it was clear that her interest in the matter, as a practical scheme, had entirely evaporated.
"He seemed as glad to be rid of me as I to be rid of him. 'Oh, must yer, he said, holding out his hand. 'Well, so long. "We shook hands carelessly. He disappeared in the crowd, and that is the last I have ever seen of him." "Is that a true story?" asked Jephson. "Well, I've altered the names and dates," said MacShaughnassy; "but the main facts you can rely upon."
They afforded a still stronger example of the influence exercised by Tommy Atkins upon the British domestic, and I therefore thought it right to relate them. "The heroine of them," I said, "is our Amenda. Now, you would call her a tolerably well-behaved, orderly young woman, would you not?" "She is my ideal of unostentatious respectability," answered MacShaughnassy.
"Not always," persisted Jephson; "I've known selfishness selfishness according to the ordinarily accepted meaning of the term to be productive of good actions. I can give you an instance, if you like." "Has it got a moral?" asked MacShaughnassy, drowsily, Jephson mused a moment. "Yes," he said at length; "a very practical moral and one very useful to young men."
He puffed the tobacco into a glow, threw the match into the embers, and then said: "And the seed of all virtue also." "Sit down and get on with your work," said MacShaughnassy from the sofa where he lay at full length with his heels on a chair; "we're discussing the novel. Paradoxes not admitted during business hours." Jephson, however, was in an argumentative mood.
We agreed to hear the particulars, and judge for ourselves. "This story," commenced MacShaughnassy, "comes from Furtwangen, a small town in the Black Forest. There lived there a very wonderful old fellow named Nicholaus Geibel. His business was the making of mechanical toys, at which work he had acquired an almost European reputation.
But the next moment he looked up again, and his face seemed literally transformed. "'Oh! Mr. MacShaughnassy, he burst out, with a ring of genuine manliness in his voice, 'you don't know 'ow good, 'ow beautiful she is. I ain't fit to breathe 'er name in my thoughts. An' she's so clever. I met 'er at that Toynbee 'All. There was a party of toffs there all together. You would 'ave enjoyed it, Mr.
A cat's-meat barrow was standing by the kerb, and for a moment, as he passed it, the dog hesitated. But his nobler nature asserted itself, and, walking straight up to the hospital railings, and raising himself upon his hind legs, he dropped his penny into the contribution box. MacShaughnassy was much affected by this story. He said it showed such a beautiful trait in the dog's character.
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