Short Fiction · The Turkish Bath (3/4)

“We will listen to you,” we said, resuming our chair⁠—remembering as we did so the three-and-sixpence, the two cigars, the to kalon, the line from Pope, and the half line from Horace. The man had taken much trouble with the view of placing himself where he now was. When we had been all but naked together I had taken him to be the superior of the two, and what were we that we should refuse him an interview simply because he had wares to sell which we should only be too willing to buy at his price if they were fit for our use?

Then he told his tale. As for Paris, Constantinople, and New York, he frankly admitted that he knew nothing of those capitals. When we reminded him, with some ill-nature as we thought afterwards, that he had assumed an intimacy with the current literature of the three cities, he told us that such remarks were “just the sparkling gims of conversation in which a man shouldn’t expect to find rale diamonds.” Of “Doblin” he knew every street, every lane, every newspaper, every editor; but the poverty, dependence, and general poorness of a provincial press had crushed him, and he had boldly resolved to try a fight in the “methropolis of litherature.” He referred us to the managers of the “Boyne Bouncer,” the “Clontarf Chronicle,” the “Donnybrook Debater,” and the “Echoes of Erin,” assuring us that we should find him to be as well esteemed as known in the offices of those widely-circulated publications. His reading he told us was unbounded, and the pen was as ready to his hand as is the plough to the hand of the husbandman. Did we not think it a noble ambition in him thus to throw himself into the great “areanay,” as he called it, and try his fortune in the “methropolis of litherature?” He paused for a reply, and we were driven to acknowledge that whatever might be said of our friend’s prudence, his courage was undoubted. “I’ve got it here,” said he. “I’ve got it all here.” And he touched his right breast with the fingers of his left hand, which still wore the tattered glove.

He had succeeded in moving us. “Mr. Molloy,” we said, “we’ll read your paper, and we’ll then do the best we can for you. We must tell you fairly that we hardly like your subject, but if the writing be good you can try your hand at something else.”

“Sure there’s nothing under the sun I won’t write about at your bidding.”

“If we can be of service to you, Mr. Molloy, we will.” Then the editor broke down, and the man spoke to the man. “I need not tell you, Mr. Molloy, that the heart of one man of letters always warms to another.”

“It was because I knew ye was of that sort that I followed ye in yonder,” he said, with a tear in his eye.

The butter-boat of benevolence was in our hand, and we proceeded to pour out its contents freely. It is a vessel which an editor should lock up carefully; and, should he lose the key, he will not be the worse for the loss. We need not repeat here all the pretty things that we said to him, explaining to him from a full heart with how much agony we were often compelled to resist the entreaties of literary suppliants, declaring to him how we had longed to publish tons of manuscript⁠—simply in order that we might give pleasure to those who brought them to us. We told him how accessible we were to a woman’s tear, to a man’s struggle, to a girl’s face, and assured him of the daily wounds which were inflicted on ourselves by the impossibility of reconciling our duties with our sympathies. “Bedad, thin,” said Mr. Molloy, grasping our hand, “you’ll find none of that difficulty wid me. If you’ll sympathise like a man, I’ll work for you like a horse.” We assured him that we would, really thinking it probable that he might do some useful work for the magazine; and then we again stood up waiting for his departure.

“Now I’ll tell ye a plain truth,” said he, “and ye may do just as ye plaise about it. There isn’t an ounce of tay or a pound of mait along with Mrs. Molloy this moment; and, what’s more, there isn’t a shilling between us to buy it. I never begged in my life;⁠—not yet. But if you can advance me a sovereign on that manuscript it will save me from taking the coat on my back to a pawnbroker’s shop for whatever it’ll fetch there.” We paused a moment as we thought of it all, and then we handed him the coin for which he asked us. If the manuscript should be worthless the loss would be our own. We would not grudge a slice from the wholesome homemade loaf after we had used the butter-boat of benevolence. “It don’t become me,” said Mr. Molloy, “to thank you for such a thrifle as a loan of twenty shillings; but I’ll never forget the feeling that has made you listen to me, and that too after I had been rather down on you at thim baths.” We gave him a kindly nod of the head, and then he took his departure.

“Ye’ll see me again anyways?” he said, and we promised that we would.

We were anxious enough about the manuscript, but we could not examine it at that moment. When our office work was done we walked home with the roll in our pocket, speculating as we went on the probable character of Mr. Molloy. We still believed in him⁠—still believed in him in spite of the manner in which he had descended in his language, and had fallen into a natural flow of words which alone would not have given much promise of him as a man of letters. But a human being, in regard to his power of production, is the reverse of a rope. He is as strong as his strongest part, and remembering the effect which Molloy’s words had had upon us at the Turkish bath, we still thought that there must be something in him. If so, how pleasant would it be to us to place such a man on his legs⁠—modestly on his legs, so that he might earn for his wife and bairns that meat and tea which he had told us that they were now lacking. An editor is always striving to place someone modestly on his legs in literature⁠—on his or her⁠—striving, and alas! so often failing. Here had come a man in regard to whom, as I walked home with his manuscript in my pocket, I did feel rather sanguine.

Of all the rubbish that I ever read in my life, that paper on the Five-o’clock Tea-table was, I think, the worst. It was not only vulgar, foolish, unconnected, and meaningless; but it was also ungrammatical and unintelligible even in regard to the wording of it. The very spelling was defective. The paper was one with which no editor, subeditor, or reader would have found it necessary to go beyond the first ten lines before he would have known that to print it would have been quite out of the question. We went through with it because of our interest in the man; but as it was in the beginning, so it was to the end⁠—a farrago of wretched nonsense, so bad that no one, without experience in such matters, would believe it possible that even the writer should desire the publication of it! It seemed to us to be impossible that Mr. Molloy should ever have written a word for those Hibernian periodicals which he had named to us. He had got our sovereign; and with that, as far as we were concerned, there must be an end of Mr. Molloy. We doubted even whether he would come for his own manuscript.

But he came. He came exactly at the hour appointed, and when we looked at his face we felt convinced that he did not doubt his own success. There was an air of expectant triumph about him which dismayed us. It was clear enough that he was confident that he should take away with him the full price of his article, after deducting the sovereign which he had borrowed. “You like it thin,” he said, before we had been able to compose our features to a proper form for the necessary announcement.

“Mr. Molloy,” we said, “it will not do. You must believe us that it will not do.”

“Not do?”

“No, indeed. We need not explain further;⁠—but⁠—but⁠—you had really better turn your hand to some other occupation.”

“Some other occupa-ation!” he exclaimed, opening wide his eyes, and holding up both his hands.

“Indeed we think so, Mr. Molloy.”

“And you’ve read it?”

“Every word of it;⁠—on our honour.”

“And you won’t have it?”

“Well;⁠—no, Mr. Molloy, certainly we cannot take it.”

“Ye reject my article on the Five-o’clock Tay-table!” Looking into his face as he spoke, we could not but be certain that its rejection was to him as astonishing as would have been its acceptance to the readers of the magazine. He put his hand up to his head and stood wondering. “I suppose ye’d better choose your own subject for yourself,” he said, as though by this great surrender on his own part he was getting rid of all the difficulty on ours.

“Mr. Molloy,” we began, “we may as well be candid with you⁠—”

“I’ll tell you what it is,” said he, “I’ve taken such a liking to you there’s nothing I won’t do to plaise ye. I’ll just put it in my pocket, and begin another for ye as soon as the children have had their bit of dinner.” At last we did succeed, or thought that we succeeded, in making him understand that we regarded the case as being altogether hopeless, and were convinced that it was beyond his powers to serve us. “And I’m to be turned off like that,” he said, bursting into open tears as he threw himself into a chair and hid his face upon the table. “Ah! wirra, wirra, what’ll I do at all? Sure, and didn’t I think it was fixed as firm between us as the Nelson monument? When ye handselled me with the money, didn’t I think it was as good as done and done?” I begged him not to regard the money, assuring him that he was welcome to the sovereign. “There’s my wife’ll be brought to bed any day,” he went on to say, “and not a ha’porth of anything ready for it! ’Deed, thin, and the world’s hard. The world’s very hard!” And this was he who had talked to me about Constantinople and New York at the baths, and had made me believe that he was a well-informed, well-to-do man of the world!

Even now we did not suspect that he was lying to us. Why he should be such as he seemed to be was a mystery; but even yet we believed in him after a fashion. That he was sorely disappointed and brokenhearted because of his wife, was so evident to us, that we offered him another sovereign, regarding it as the proper price of that butter-boat of benevolence which we had permitted ourselves to use. But he repudiated our offer. “I’ve never begged,” said he, “and, for myself, I’d sooner starve. And Mary Jane would sooner starve than I should beg. It will be best for us both to put an end to ourselves and to have done with it.” This was very melancholy; and as he lay with his head upon the table, we did not see how we were to induce him to leave us.

“You’d better take the sovereign⁠—just for the present,” we said.

“Niver!” said he, looking up for a moment, “niver!” And still he continued to sob. About this period of the interview, which before it was ended was a very long interview, we ourselves made a suggestion the imprudence of which we afterwards acknowledged to ourselves. We offered to go to his lodgings and see his wife and children. Though the man could not write a good magazine article, yet he might be a very fitting object for our own personal kindness. And the more we saw of the man, the more we liked him⁠—in spite of his incapacity. “The place is so poor,” he said, objecting to our offer. After what had passed between us, we felt that that could be no reason against our visit, and we began for a moment to fear that he was deceiving us. “Not yet,” he cried, “not quite yet. I will try once again;⁠—once again. You will let me see you once more?”

“And you will take the other sovereign,” we said⁠—trying him. He should have had the other sovereign if he would have taken it; but we confess that had he done so then we should have regarded him as an impostor. But he did not take it, and left us in utter ignorance as to his true character.

After an interval of three days he came again, and there was exactly the same appearance. He wore the same tattered gloves. He had not pawned his coat. There was the same hat⁠—shabby when observed closely, but still carrying a decent appearance when not minutely examined. In his face there was no sign of want, and at moments there was a cheeriness about him which was almost refreshing. “I’ve got a something this time that I think ye must like⁠—unless you’re harder to plaise than Rhadhamanthus.” So saying, he tendered me another roll of paper, which I at once opened, intending to read the first page of it. The essay was entitled the “Church of England;⁠—a Question for the People.” It was handed to me as having been written within the last three days; and, from its bulk, might have afforded fair work for a fortnight to a writer accustomed to treat of subjects of such weight. As we had expected, the first page was unintelligible, absurd, and farcical. We began to be angry with ourselves for having placed ourselves in such a connection with a man so utterly unable to do that which he pretended to do. “I think I’ve hit it off now,” said he, watching our face as we were reading.

The reader need not be troubled with a minute narrative of the circumstances as they occurred during the remainder of the interview. What had happened before was repeated very closely. He wondered, he remonstrated, he complained, and he wept. He talked of his wife and family, and talked as though up to this last moment he had felt confident of success. Judging from his face as he entered the room, we did not doubt but that he had been confident. His subsequent despair was unbounded, and we then renewed our offer to call on his wife. After some hesitation he gave us an address in Hoxton, begging us to come after seven in the evening if it were possible. He again declined the offer of money, and left us, understanding that we would visit his wife on the following evening. “You are quite sure about the manuscript?” he said as he left us. We replied that we were quite sure.