GEORGE SHAW - The Complete Works

“I couldn’t help it, Miss,” he replied submissively. “I am a natural born liar — always was. I know that it must appear dreadful to you that never told a lie, and don’t hardly know what a lie is, belonging as you do to a class where none is ever told. But common people like me tells lies just as a duck swims. I ask your pardon, Miss, most humble, and I hope the young ladies’ll be able to tell one set of skates from t’other; for I’m blest if I can.”

“Put them down. Miss Wilson wishes to speak to you before you go. Susan, show him the way.”

“Hope you ain’t been and got a poor cove into trouble, Miss?”

“Miss Wilson knows how you have behaved.”

He smiled at her benevolently and followed Susan upstairs. On their way they met Jane, who stole a glance at him, and was about to pass by, when he said:

“Won’t you say a word to Miss Wilson for a poor common fellow, honored young lady? I have got into dreadful trouble for having made bold to assist you this morning.”

“You needn’t give yourself the pains to talk like that,” replied Jane in an impetuous whisper. “We all know that you’re only pretending.”

“Well, you can guess my motive,” he whispered, looking tenderly at her.

“Such stuff and nonsense! I never heard of such a thing in my life,” said Jane, and ran away, plainly understanding that he had disguised himself in order to obtain admission to the college and enjoy the happiness of looking at her.

“Cursed fool that I am!” he said to himself; “I cannot act like a rational creature for five consecutive minutes.”

The servant led him to the study and announced, “The man, if you please, ma’am.”

“Jeff Smilash,” he added in explanation.

“Come in,” said Miss Wilson sternly.

He went in, and met the determined frown which she cast on him from her seat behind the writing table, by saying courteously:

“Good-morning, Miss Wilson.”

She bent forward involuntarily, as if to receive a gentleman. Then she checked herself and looked implacable.

“I have to apologize,” he said, “for making use of your name unwarrantably this morning — telling a lie, in fact. I happened to be skating when the young ladies came down, and as they needed some assistance which they would hardly have accepted from a common man — excuse my borrowing that tiresome expression from our acquaintance Smilash — I set their minds at ease by saying that you had sent for me. Otherwise, as you have given me a bad character — though not worse than I deserve — they would probably have refused to employ me, or at least I should have been compelled to accept payment, which I, of course, do not need.”

Miss Wilson affected surprise. “I do not understand you,” she said.

“Not altogether,” he said smiling. “But you understand that I am what is called a gentleman.”

“No. The gentlemen with whom I am conversant do not dress as you dress, nor speak as you speak, nor act as you act.”

He looked at her, and her countenance confirmed the hostility of her tone. He instantly relapsed into an aggravated phase of Smilash.

“I will no longer attempt to set myself up as a gentleman,” he said. “I am a common man, and your ladyship’s hi recognizes me as such and is not to be deceived. But don’t go for to say that I am not candid when I am as candid as ever you will let me be. What fault, if any, do you find with my putting the skates on the young ladies, and carryin’ the campstool for them?”

“If you are a gentleman,” said Miss Wilson, reddening, “your conduct in persisting in these antics in my presence is insulting to me. Extremely so.”

“Miss Wilson,” he replied, unruffled, “if you insist on Smilash, you shall have Smilash; I take an insane pleasure in personating him. If you want Sidney — my real Christian name — you can command him. But allow me to say that you must have either one or the other. If you become frank with me, I will understand that you are addressing Sidney. If distant and severe, Smilash.”

“No matter what your name may be,” said Miss Wilson, much annoyed, “I forbid you to come here or to hold any communication whatever with the young ladies in my charge.”

“Why?”

“Because I choose.”

“There is much force in that reason, Miss Wilson; but it is not moral force in the sense conveyed by your college prospectus, which I have read with great interest.”

Miss Wilson, since her quarrel with Agatha, had been sore on the subject of moral force. “No one is admitted here,” she said, “without a trustworthy introduction or recommendation. A disguise is not a satisfactory substitute for either.”

“Disguises are generally assumed for the purpose of concealing crime,” he remarked sententiously.

“Precisely so,” she said emphatically.

“Therefore, I bear, to say the least, a doubtful character. Nevertheless, I have formed with some of the students here a slight acquaintance, of which, it seems, you disapprove. You have given me no good reason why I should discontinue that acquaintance, and you cannot control me except by your wish — a sort of influence not usually effective with doubtful characters. Suppose I disregard your wish, and that one or two of your pupils come to you and say: ‘Miss Wilson, in our opinion Smilash is an excellent fellow; we find his conversation most improving. As it is your principle to allow us to exercise our own judgment, we intend to cultivate the acquaintance of Smilash.’ How will you act in that case?”

“Send them home to their parents at once.”

“I see that your principles are those of the Church of England. You allow the students the right of private judgment on condition that they arrive at the same conclusions as you. Excuse my saying that the principles of the Church of England, however excellent, are not those your prospectus led me to hope for. Your plan is coercion, stark and simple.”

“I do not admit it,” said Miss Wilson, ready to argue, even with Smilash, in defence of her system. “The girls are quite at liberty to act as they please, but I reserve my equal liberty to exclude them from my college if I do not approve of their behavior.”

“Just so. In most schools children are perfectly at liberty to learn their lessons or not, just as they please; but the principal reserves an equal liberty to whip them if they cannot repeat their tasks.”

“I do not whip my pupils,” said Miss Wilson indignantly. “The comparison is an outrage.”

“But you expel them; and, as they are devoted to you and to the place, expulsion is a dreaded punishment. Yours is the old system of making laws and enforcing them by penalties, and the superiority of Alton College to other colleges is due, not to any difference of system, but to the comparative reasonableness of its laws and the mildness and judgment with which they are enforced.”

“My system is radically different from the old one. However, I will not discuss the matter with you. A mind occupied with the prejudices of the old coercive despotism can naturally only see in the new a modification of the old, instead of, as my system is, an entire reversal or abandonment of it.”

He shook his head sadly and said: “You seek to impose your ideas on others, ostracizing those who reject them. Believe me, mankind has been doing nothing else ever since it began to pay some attention to ideas. It has been said that a benevolent despotism is the best possible form of government. I do not believe that saying, because I believe another one to the effect that hell is paved with benevolence, which most people, the proverb being too deep for them, misinterpret as unfulfilled intentions. As if a benevolent despot might not by any error of judgment destroy his kingdom, and then say, like Romeo when he got his friend killed, ‘I thought all for the best!’ Excuse my rambling. I meant to say, in short, that though you are benevolent and judicious you are none the less a despot.”