A Conversation
“There is that easily calculable element in your nature, dear boy,” I said, “by which you forego the dignity of a freewilled human being and come under an inflexible natural law. I can anticipate your movements, intentions, and opinions long beforehand. For example, I know quite well that every Saturday morning will see you with The New Statesman under your arm; I know that the words ‘Wagner’ or ‘Shaw’ uttered slowly and deliberately in your ear will produce a perfectly definite reaction.”
“I bet you can’t predict what I am going to buy now,” R⸺ replied gaily, advancing to the newspaper stall.
He bought the Pink ’Un and I laughed. …
“And so you read Pragmatism,” he mused, “while the fate of the Empire stands in the balance.”
“Yes,” said I, “and the Paris Academy of Sciences were discussing the functions of θ and the Polymorphism of Antarctic diatoms last September when the Germans stood almost at the gates of Paris.”
This was a lucky stroke for me, for he knew he was rubbing me on the raw. We are, of course, great friends, but sometimes we get on one another’s nerves.
“I am polychromatic,” I declaimed, “rhetorical, bass. You—besides being a bally fool—are of a pretty gray colour, a baritone and you paint in watercolours.”
“Whereas you, of course, would paint in blood?” he answered facetiously.
His Oxford education has a firm hold on him. He says for example, “e converso” instead of “on the other hand” and “entre nous” for “between ourselves.” He labels his paragraphs α, β, γ, instead of a, b, c, and quotes Juvenal, knows Paris and Naples, visits the Alps for the winter sports, all in the approved manner of dons.
Not infrequently he visits the East End to Study “how the poor live,” he lectures at Toynbee Hall, and calls the proletariat “the prolly.” In fact, he does everything according to the regulations, being a socialist and an agnostic, a follower of Shaw and a devotee of Bunyan. “Erotic” he is careful to pronounce eròtic to show he knows Greek, and the “Duma,” the Dumà, though he doesn’t know Russian. Like any don, he is always ready to discuss and give an opinion on any sub- supra- or circum-lunary subject from bimetallism to the Symphony as an art-form.
“That’s a dominant fifth,” I said to him the other day; no answer.
“You ignorant devil,” I said, “you don’t know what a dominant fifth is!”
We made grimaces at one another.
“Who’s the Master of the Mint?” I asked him. “That is an easy one.”
“The Chancellor of the Exchequer,” was the prompt reply.
“Oh! that’s right,” I said sarcastic and crestfallen. “Now tell me the shortest verse in the Bible and the date of Rameses II.”
We laughed. R⸺ is a very clever man and the most extraordinarily versatile man I know. He is bound to make his mark. His danger is—too many irons in the fire. Here are some of his occupations and acquirements: Art (etching, drypoint, watercolours), music (a charming voice), classics, French, German, Italian (both speaking and reading knowledge), biology, etc., etc. He is forever titillating his mind with some new thing. “For God’s sake, do leave it alone—you simply rag your mind to death. Put it out to grass—go through an annual season of complete abstinence from knowledge—an intellectual Lent.”
No one more than he enjoys my ragging him like this—and I do it rather well.
