FullReads

“Or if luck be against me, she is possibly a smart woman, that is to say, her conversation is a running fire of spiteful remarks at the expense of every one she knows, and of sneers at the expense of every one she doesn’t. I always feel I could make a better woman myself, out of a bottle of vinegar and a penn’orth of mixed pins. Yet it usually takes one about ten minutes to get away from her.

“Even when, by chance, one meets a flesh-and-blood man or woman at such gatherings, it is not the time or place for real conversation; and as for the shadows, what person in their senses would exhaust a single brain cell upon such? I remember a discussion once concerning Tennyson, considered as a social item. The dullest and most densely-stupid bore I ever came across was telling how he had sat next to Tennyson at dinner. ‘I found him a most uninteresting man,’ so he confided to us; ‘he had nothing to say for himself–absolutely nothing.’ I should like to resuscitate Dr. Samuel Johnson for an evening, and throw him into one of these ‘At Homes’ of yours.”

My friend is an admitted misanthrope, as I have explained; but one cannot dismiss him as altogether unjust. That there is a certain mystery about Society’s craving for Society must be admitted. I stood one evening trying to force my way into the supper room of a house in Berkeley Square. A lady, hot and weary, a few yards in front of me was struggling to the same goal.

“Why,” remarked she to her companion, “why do we come to these places, and fight like a Bank Holiday crowd for eighteenpenny-worth of food?”

“We come here,” replied the man, whom I judged to be a philosopher, “to say we’ve been here.”

I met A—– the other evening, and asked him to dine with me on Monday. I don’t know why I ask A—– to dine with me, but about once a month I do. He is an uninteresting man.

“I can’t,” he said, “I’ve got to go to the B—–s’; confounded nuisance, it will be infernally dull.”

“Why go?” I asked.

“I really don’t know,” he replied.

A little later B—– met me, and asked me to dine with him on Monday.

“I can’t,” I answered, “some friends are coming to us that evening. It’s a duty dinner, you know the sort of thing.”

“I wish you could have managed it,” he said, “I shall have no one to talk to. The A—–s are coming, and they bore me to death.”

“Why do you ask him?” I suggested.

“Upon my word, I really don’t know,” he replied.

But to return to our rooks. We were speaking of their social instincts. Some dozen of them–the “scallywags” and bachelors of the community, I judge them to be–have started a Club. For a month past I have been trying to understand what the affair was. Now I know: it is a Club.

And for their Club House they have chosen, of course, the tree nearest my bedroom window. I can guess how that came about; it was my own fault, I never thought of it. About two months ago, a single rook–suffering from indigestion or an unhappy marriage, I know not–chose this tree one night for purposes of reflection. He woke me up: I felt angry. I opened the window, and threw an empty soda-water bottle at him. Of course it did not hit him, and finding nothing else to throw, I shouted at him, thinking to frighten him away. He took no notice, but went on talking to himself. I shouted louder, and woke up my own dog. The dog barked furiously, and woke up most things within a quarter of a mile. I had to go down with a boot-jack–the only thing I could find handy–to soothe the dog. Two hours later I fell asleep from exhaustion. I left the rook still cawing.