A. E. (Alfred Edgar) Coppard - The Collected Tales of A. E. Coppard

In the park there was a lake,

On the lake . . . . . . . boat,

In the boat

The Black Dog (1923)

On the last night of Hilary term Simpkins left his father’s shop a quarter before the closing-hour in order to deliver personally a letter to John Evans-Antrobus, Esq., of St. Saviour’s College. Simpkins was a clerk to his father, and the letter he carried was inscribed on its envelope as “Important,” and a further direction, “Wait Answer,” was doubly underlined. Acting as he was told to act by his father, than whom he was incapable of recognizing any bigger authority either in this world or, if such a slight shrinking fellow could ever project his comprehension so far, in the next, he passed the porter’s lodge under the archway of St. Saviour’s and, crossing the first quadrangle, entered a small hall that bore the name J. Evans-Antrobus with half a dozen others neatly painted on the wall. He climbed two flights of wooden stairs, and knocking on a door whose lintel was marked “5, Evans-Antrobus,” was invited to “Come in.” He entered a study and confronted three hilarious young men clothed immaculately in evening dress, a costume he himself privily admired much as a derelict might envy the harp of an angel. The noisiest young gentleman, the tall one with a monocle, was his quarry; he handed the letter to him. Mr. Evans-Antrobus then read the letter, which invited him to pay instanter a four-year-old debt of some nine or ten pounds which he had inexplicably but consistently overlooked. And there was a half-hidden but unpleasant alternative suggested should Mr. Evans-Antrobus fail to comply with this not unreasonable request. Mr. Evans-Antrobus said: “Damn!” In point of fact he enlarged the scope of his vocabulary far beyond the limits of that modest expletive, while his two friends, being invited to read the missive, also exclaimed in terms that were not at all subsidiary.

“My compliments to Messrs. Bagshot and Buffle!” exclaimed the tall young man with a monocle angrily; “I shall certainly call round and see them in the morning. Good evening!”

Little Simpkins explained that Bagshot and Buffle were not in need of compliments, their business being to sell boots and to receive payment for them. Two of the jolly young gentlemen proposed to throw him down the stairs, and were only persuaded not to by the third jolly young gentleman, who much preferred to throw him out of the window. Whereupon Simpkins politely hinted that he would be compelled to interview the college dean and await developments in his chambers. Simpkins made it quite clear that, whatever happened, he was going to wait somewhere until he got the money. The three jolly young gentlemen then told little Simpkins exactly what they thought of him, exactly, omitting no shade of denunciation, fine or emphatic. They told him where he ought to be at the very moment, where he would quickly be unless he took himself off; in short, they told him a lot of prophetic things that, as is the way of prophecy, invited a climax of catastrophic horror.

“What is your name? Who the devil are you?”

“My name is Simpkins.”

Then the three jolly young gentlemen took counsel together in whispers, and at last Mr. Evans-Antrobus said: “Well, if you insist upon waiting, Mr. Simpkins, I must get the money for you. I can borrow it, I suppose, boys, from Fazz, can’t I?”

Again they consulted in whispers, after which two of the young gents said they ought to be going, and so they went.

“Wait here for me,” said Mr. Evans-Antrobus, “I shall not be five minutes.”

But Mr. Simpkins was so firmly opposed to this course that the other relented. “Damn you! come along with me, then; I must go and see Fazz.” So off they went to some rooms higher up the same flight of stairs, beyond a door that was marked “F. A. Zealander.” When they entered Fazz sat moping in front of the fire; he was wrapped as deeply as an Eskimo in some plaid travelling-rugs girt with the pink rope of a dressing-gown that lay across his knees. The fire was good, but the hearth was full of ashes. The end of the fender was ornamented with the strange little iron face of a man whose eyes were shut but whose knobby cheeks fondly glowed. Fazz’s eyes were not shut, they were covered by dim glasses, and his cheeks had no more glow than a sponge.

“Hullo, Fazz. You better today?”

“No, dearie, I am not conscious of any improvement. This influenza’s a thug; I am being deprived of my vitality as completely as a fried rasher.”

“Oh, by the by,” said his friend, “you don’t know each other: Mr. Simpkins—Mr. Zealander.”

The former bowed awkwardly and unexpectedly shook Mr. Zealander’s hot limp hand. At that moment a man hurried in, exclaiming: “Mr. Evans-Antrobus, sir, the dean wants to see you in his rooms at once, sir!”

“That is deuced awkward,” said that gentleman blandly. “Just excuse me for a moment or two, Fazz.”

He hurried out, leaving Simpkins confronting Mr. Zealander in some confusion. Fazz poked his flaming coal. “This fire! Did you ever see such a morbid conflagration?”

“Rather nice, I thought,” replied Simpkins affably; “quite cool tonight, outside, rather.”

The host peered at him through those dim glasses. “There’s a foggy humidity about everything, like the inside of a cream tart. But sit down,” said Fazz, with the geniality of a man who was about to be hung and was rather glad that he was no longer to be exposed to the fraudulent excess of life, “and tell me a bawdy story.”

Simpkins sank into an armchair and was silent.

“Perhaps you don’t care for bawdy stories?” continued Fazz. “I do, I do. I love vulgarity; there is certainly a niche in life for vulgarity. If ever I possess a house of my own I will arrange—I will, upon my soul—one augustly vulgar room, divinely vulgar, upholstered in sallow pigskin. Do tell me something. You haven’t got a spanner on you, I suppose? There is something the matter with my bed. Once it was full of goose feathers, but now I sleep, as it were, on the bulge of a barrel; I must do something to it with a spanner. I hate spanners—such dreadful democratic tools; they terrify me, they gape at you as if they wanted to bite you. Spanners are made of iron, and this is a funny world, for it is full of things like spanners.”

Simpkins timidly rose up through the waves of this discourse and asked if he could “do” anything. He was mystified, amused, and impressed by this person; he didn’t often meet people like that, he didn’t often meet anybody; he rather liked him. On each side of the invalid there were tablets and bottles of medicine.

“I am just going to take my temperature,” said Fazz. “Do have a cigarette, dearie, or a cigar. Can you see the matches? Yes; now do you mind surrounding me with my medicines? They give such a hopeful air to the occasion. There’s a phial of sodium salicylate tabloids, I must take six of them in a minute or two. Then there are the quinine capsules; the formalin, yes; those lozenges I suck—have one?—they are so comforting, and that depressing laxative; surround me with them. Oh, glorious, benignant, isn’t it? Now I shall take my temperature; I shall be as stolid as the sphinx for three minutes, so do tell me that story. Where is my thermometer, oh!” He popped the thermometer into his mouth, but pulled it out again. “Do you know L. G.? He’s a blithe little fellow, oh, very blithe. He was in Jacobsen’s rooms the other day—Jacobsen’s a bit of an art connoisseur, you know, and draws and paints, and Jacobsen drew attention to the portrait of a lady that was hanging on the wall. ‘Oh, dear,’ said L. G., ‘what a hag! Where did you get that thing?’ just like that. Such a perfect fool, L. G. ‘It’s my mother,’ says Jacobsen. ‘Oh, of course,’ explained L. G., ‘I didn’t mean that, of course, my dear fellow; I referred to the horrible treatment, entirely to the horrible treatment; it is a wretched daub.’ ‘I did it myself!’ said Jacobsen. You don’t know L. G.? Oh, he is very blithe. What were you going to tell me? I am just going to take my temperature; yesterday it was ninety-odd point something. I do hope it is different now. I can’t bear those points, they seem so equivocal.”