The Big Bow Mystery

felt almost lonely at times in his superiority. He was a Vegetarian, a Secularist, a Blue Ribbonite, a Republican, and an Anti-Tobacconist. Meat was a fad. Drink was a fad. Religion was a fad. Monarchy was a fad. Tobacco was a fad. “A plain man like me,” Crowl used to say, “can live without fads.” “A plain man” was Crowl’s catchword. When of a Sunday morning he stood on Mile-end Waste, which was opposite his shop⁠—and held forth to the crowd on the evils of kings, priests and mutton chops, the “plain man” turned up at intervals like the “theme” of a symphonic movement. “I am only a plain man and I want to know.” It was a phrase that sabered the spiderwebs of logical refinement, and held them up scornfully on the point. When Crowl went for a little recreation in Victoria Park on Sunday afternoons, it was with this phrase that he invariably routed the supernaturalists. Crowl knew his Bible better than most ministers, and always carried a minutely-printed copy in his pocket, dogs-eared to mark contradictions in the text. The second chapter of Jeremiah says one thing; the first chapter of Corinthians says another. Two contradictory statements may both be true, but “I am only a plain man, and I want to know.” Crowl spent a large part of his time in setting “the word against the word.” Cockfighting affords its votaries no acuter pleasure than Crowl derived from setting two texts by the ears. Crowl had a metaphysical genius which sent his Sunday morning disciples frantic with admiration, and struck the enemy dumb with dismay. He had discovered, for instance, that the Deity could not move, owing to already filling all space. He was also the first to invent, for the confusion of the clerical, the crucial case of a saint dying at the Antipodes contemporaneously with another in London. Both went skyward to heaven, yet the two traveled in directly opposite directions. In all eternity they would never meet. Which, then, got to heaven? Or was there no such place? “I am only a plain man, and I want to know.” Preserve us our open spaces; they exist to testify to the incurable interest of humanity in the Unknown and the Misunderstood. Even ’Arry is capable of five minutes’ attention to speculative theology, if ’Arriet isn’t in a ’urry.

Peter Crowl was not sorry to have a lodger like Denzil Cantercot, who, though a man of parts and thus worth powder and shot, was so hopelessly wrong on all subjects under the sun. In only one point did Peter Crowl agree with Denzil Cantercot⁠—he admired Denzil Cantercot secretly. When he asked him for the True⁠—which was about twice a day on the average⁠—he didn’t really expect to get it from him. He knew that Denzil was a poet.

“The Beautiful,” he went on, “is a thing that only appeals to men like you. The True is for all men. The majority have the first claim. Till then you poets must stand aside. The True and the Useful⁠—that’s what we want. The Good of Society is the only test of things. Everything stands or falls by the Good of Society.”

“The Good of Society!” echoed Denzil, scornfully. “What’s the Good of Society? The Individual is before all. The mass must be sacrificed to the Great Man. Otherwise the Great Man will be sacrificed to the mass. Without great men there would be no art. Without art life would be a blank.”

“Ah, but we should fill it up with bread and butter,” said Peter Crowl.

“Yes, it is bread and butter that kills the Beautiful,” said Denzil Cantercot bitterly. “Many of us start by following the butterfly through the verdant meadows, but we turn aside⁠—”

“To get the grub,” chuckled Peter, cobbling away.

“Peter, if you make a jest of everything, I’ll not waste my time on you.”

Denzil’s wild eyes flashed angrily. He shook his long hair. Life was very serious to him. He never wrote comic verse intentionally.

There are three reasons why men of genius have long hair. One is, that they forget it is growing. The second is, that they like it. The third is, that it comes cheaper; they wear it long for the same reason that they wear their hats long.

Owing to this peculiarity of genius, you may get quite a reputation for lack of twopence. The economic reason did not apply to Denzil, who could always get credit with the profession on the strength of his appearance. Therefore, when street Arabs vocally commanded him to get his hair cut, they were doing no service to barbers. Why does all the world watch over barbers and conspire to promote their interests? Denzil would have told you it was not to serve the barbers, but to gratify the crowd’s instinctive resentment of originality. In his palmy days Denzil had been an editor, but he no more thought of turning his scissors against himself than of swallowing his paste. The efficacy of hair has changed since the days of Samson, otherwise Denzil would have been a Hercules instead of a long, thin, nervous man, looking too brittle and delicate to be used even for a pipe-cleaner. The narrow oval of his face sloped to a pointed, untrimmed beard. His linen was reproachable, his dingy boots were down at heel, and his cocked hat was drab with dust. Such are the effects of a love for the Beautiful.

Peter Crowl was impressed with Denzil’s condemnation of flippancy, and he hastened to turn off the joke.

“I’m quite serious,” he said. “Butterflies are no good to nothing or nobody; caterpillars at least save the birds from starving.”

“Just like your view of things, Peter,” said Denzil. “Good morning, madam.” This to Mrs. Crowl, to whom he removed his hat with elaborate courtesy. Mrs. Crowl grunted and looked at her husband with a note of interrogation in each eye. For some seconds Crowl stuck to his last, endeavoring not to see the question. He shifted uneasily on