The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition, Vol. 5
MORE NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
THE DYNAMITER
Gentlemen,
In the volume now in your hands, the authors have touched upon that ugly devil of crime, with which it is your glory to have contended. It were a waste of ink to do so in a serious spirit. Let us dedicate our horror to acts of a more mingled strain, where crime preserves some features of nobility, and where reason and humanity can still relish the temptation. Horror, in this case, is due to Mr. Parnell: he sits before posterity silent, Mr. Forster’s appeal echoing down the ages. Horror is due to ourselves, in that we have so long coquetted with political crime; not seriously weighing, not acutely following it from cause to consequence; but with a generous, unfounded heat of sentiment, like the schoolboy with the penny tale, applauding what was specious. When it touched ourselves (truly in a vile shape), we proved false to these imaginations; discovered, in a clap, that crime was no less cruel and no less ugly under sounding names; and recoiled from our false deities.
But seriousness comes most in place when we are to speak of our defenders. Whoever be in the right in this great and confused war of politics; whatever elements of greed, whatever traits of the bully, dishonour both parties in this inhuman contest; – your side, your part, is at least pure of doubt. Yours is the side of the child, of the breeding woman, of individual pity and public trust. If our society were the mere kingdom of the devil (as indeed it wears some of his colours), it yet embraces many precious elements and many innocent persons whom itis a glory to defend. Courage and devotion, so common in the ranks of the police, so little recognised, so meagrely rewarded, have at length found their commemoration in an historical act. History, which will represent Mr. Parnell sitting silent under the appeal of Mr. Forster, and Gordon setting forth upon his tragic enterprise, will not forget Mr. Cole carrying the dynamite in his defenceless hands, nor Mr. Cox coming coolly to his aid.
It is within the bounds of possibility that you may take up this volume, and yet be unacquainted with its predecessor: the first series ofNew Arabian Nights. The loss is yours – and mine; or, to be more exact, my publishers’. But if you are thus unlucky, the least I can do is to pass you a hint. When you shall find a reference in the following pages to one Theophilus Godall of the Bohemian Cigar Divan in Rupert Street, Soho, you must be prepared to recognise under his features no less a person than Prince Florizel of Bohemia, formerly one of the magnates of Europe, now dethroned, exiled, impoverished, and embarked in the tobacco trade.
MORE NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
THE DYNAMITER
PROLOGUE OF THE CIGAR DIVAN
In the city of encounters, the Bagdad of the West, and, to be more precise, on the broad northern pavement of Leicester Square, two young men of five- or six-and-twenty met after years of separation. The first, who was of a very smooth address, and clothed in the best fashion, hesitated to recognise the pinched and shabby air of his companion.
“What!” he cried, “Paul Somerset!”
“I am indeed Paul Somerset,” returned the other, “or what remains of him after a well-deserved experience of poverty and law. But in you, Challoner, I can perceive no change; and time may be said, without hyperbole, to write no wrinkle on your azure brow.”
“All,” replied Challoner, “is not gold that glitters. But we are here in an ill posture for confidences, and interrupt the movement of these ladies. Let us, if you please, find a more private corner.”
“If you will allow me to guide you,” replied Somerset, “I will offer you the best cigar in London.”
And taking the arm of his companion, he led him in silence and at a brisk pace to the door of a quiet establishment in Rupert Street, Soho. The entrance was adorned with one of those gigantic Highlanders of wood which have almost risen to the standing of antiquities; and across the window-glass, which sheltered the usual display of pipes, tobacco, and cigars, there ran the gilded legend: “Bohemian Cigar Divan, by T. Godall.” The interior of the shop was small, but commodious and ornate; the salesman grave, smiling, and urbane; and the two young men, each puffing a select regalia, had soon taken their places on a sofa of mouse-coloured plush, and proceeded to exchange their stories.
“I am now,” said Somerset, “a barrister; but Providence and the attorneys have hitherto denied me the opportunity to shine. A select society at the Cheshire Cheese engaged my evenings; my afternoons, as Mr. Godall could testify, have been generally passed in this divan; and my mornings, I have taken the precaution to abbreviate by not rising before twelve. At this rate, my little patrimony was very rapidly and, I am proud to remember, most agreeably expended. Since then a gentleman, who has really nothing else to recommend him beyond the fact of being my maternal uncle, deals me the small sum of ten shillings a week; and if you behold me once more revisiting the glimpses of the street lamps in my favourite quarter, you will readily divine that I have come into a fortune.”
“I should not have supposed so,” replied Challoner. “But doubtless I met you on the way to your tailors.”
“It is a visit that I purpose to delay,” returned Somerset, with a smile. “My fortune has definite limits. It consists, or rather this morning it consisted, of one hundred pounds.”
“That is certainly odd,” said Challoner; “yes, certainly the coincidence is strange. I am myself reduced to the same margin.”
“You!” cried Somerset. “And yet Solomon in all his glory – ”
“Such is the fact. I am, dear boy, on my last legs,” said Challoner. “Besides the clothes in which you see me, I have scarcely a decent trouser in my wardrobe; and if I knew how, I would this instant set about some sort of work or commerce. With a hundred pounds for capital, a man should push his way.”
“It may be,” returned Somerset; “but what to do with mine is more than I can fancy. – Mr. Godall,” he added, addressing the salesman, “you are a man who knows the world: what can a young fellow of reasonable education do with a hundred pounds?”
“It depends,” replied the salesman, withdrawing his cheroot. “The power of money is an article of faith in which I profess myself a sceptic. A hundred pounds will with difficulty support you for a year; with somewhat more difficulty you may spend it in a night; and without any difficulty at all you may lose it in five minutes on the Stock Exchange. If you are of that stamp of man that rises, a penny would be as useful; if you belong to those that fall, a penny would be no more useless. When I was myself thrown unexpectedly upon the world, it was my fortune to possess an art: I knew a good cigar. Do you know nothing, Mr. Somerset?”
“Not even law,” was the reply.
“The answer is worthy of a sage,” returned Mr. Godall. – “And you, sir,” he continued, turning to Challoner, “as the friend of Mr. Somerset, may I be allowed to address you the same question?”
“Well,” replied Challoner, “I play a fair hand at whist.”
“How many persons are there in London,” returned the salesman, “who have two-and-thirty teeth? Believe me, young gentleman, there are more still who play a fair hand at whist. Whist, sir, is wide as the world; ’tis an accomplishment like breathing. I once knew a youth who announced that he was studying to be Chancellor of England; the design was certainly ambitious; but I find it less excessive than that of the man who aspires to make a livelihood by whist.”
“Dear me,” said Challoner, “I am afraid I shall have to fall to be a working man.”
“Fall to be a working man?” echoed Mr. Godall. “Suppose a rural dean to be unfrocked, does he fall to be a major? suppose a captain were cashiered, would he fall to be a puisne judge? The ignorance of your middle class surprises me. Outside itself, it thinks the world to lie quite ignorant and equal, sunk in a common degradation; but to the