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Updated: May 17, 2025
It gave me a pleasant feeling of being behind the scenes, to watch Malim, sitting in his armchair, the essence of everything that was conventional and respectable, with Eton and Oxford written all over him, and to think that he was married all the while to an employee in a Tottenham Court Road fried-fish shop.
It was Dawkins who had coached First Trinity, and whom I, as a visitor once at the crew's training dinner, had last seen going through the ancient and honourable process of de-bagging at the hands of his light-hearted boat. "Come on," said Malim. "Godfrey Lane's going to sing a patriotic song. They will let him do it. We'll go down to the Temple and find John Hatton."
He took me into the room, the windows of which I had seen from the street. There was a burst of cheering as we entered the room. The song was finished, and there was a movement among the audience. "It's the interval," said Malim. Men surged out of the packed front room into the passage, and then into a sort of bar parlour. Malim and I also made our way there.
This sarcastic rebuke rather damped us, and after Hatton had paid Malim his half-crown, and had invited me to visit him, we departed. "Queer chap, Hatton," said Malim as we walked up the Strand. I was to discover at no distant date that he was distinctly a many-sided man. I have met a good many clergymen in my time, but I have never come across one quite like the Rev. John Hatton.
The street door opened on to a staircase, and as I mounted it the sound of a piano and a singing voice reached me. At the top of the stairs I caught sight of a waiter loaded with glasses. I called to him. "Mr. Cloyster, sir? Yessir. I'll find out whether Mr. Malim can see you, sir." Malim came out to me. "Hatton's not here," he said, "but come in. There's a smoking concert going on."
"Have you seen it?" "Yes, Tuan. Small boat. Before sunset. By the land. Now coming here near. Badroon heard him." "Why didn't you report it, then?" asked Lingard, sharply. "Malim spoke. He said: 'Nothing there, while I could see. How could I know what was in his mind or yours, Tuan?" "Do you hear anything now?" "No. They stopped now. Perhaps lost the ship who knows? Perhaps afraid "
And I could almost have said, with regard to the ancients, what Cicero, very absurdly and unbecomingly for a philosopher, says with regard to Plato, 'Cum quo errare malim quam cum aliis recte sentire'. Whereas now, without any extraordinary effort of genius, I have discovered that nature was the same three thousand years ago as it is at present; that men were but men then as well as now; that modes and customs vary often, but that human nature is always the same.
Cive Romano per orbem nemo vivit rectius. Quippe malim unum Catonem, quam trecentos Socratas.
"That's the fetish of the club," said Malim, pointing to a barrel standing on end; "and I'll introduce you to the man who is sitting on it. He's little Michael, the musical critic. They once put on an operetta of his at the Court. It ran about two nights, but he reckons all the events of the world from the date of its production." "Mr. Cloyster Mr. Michael."
The band was working away with a strident brassiness which filled the room with noise. The women's dresses were a shriek of colour. The vulgarity of the scene was so immense as to be almost admirable. It was certainly interesting. Watching his opportunity, Julian presently drew me aside into the smoking-room. "Malim," he said, "has paid you a great compliment."
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