Wilfred, as a sort of challenge to the impassive ghost of Mr. Fawcett, elaborated this heavenly-messenger idea, which his mission training showed him in quite a literal aspect. An angel was to him as concrete as, say, a duck-billed platypus; he had been taught to believe in the actual existence of both, though neither had, in fact, crossed his path. “Perhaps,” thought Wilfred, suddenly beginning to combine his mission-bred trustfulness with a sort of homemade mysticism, “I am literally an instrument of Heaven, born exclusively for that purpose, brought into the world to straighten out the lives of these good Russians. How could you prove the contrary? Perhaps the angel that came to the Virgin Mary was an angel in the body of the local equivalent of a prenatal-care district nurse (no, Mr. Fawcett, it is not an irreverent thought—an angel in such a manifestation would be none the less an angel—why not?). For an angel to be visible, a body is necessary, and a body, being a worldly garment, must have a worldly justification. A minister, who lives, eats, is paid his salary, dies, rots away in the grave, you say is God’s representative in any community … how then should God clothe His messengers—His materialized answers to prayer—in any other than a human body? How could those blankets have reached our school without a coolie to carry them—probably a coolie who was looking forward to his dinner. How could old Mr. Malinin receive his money from Seoul, or acquire a beautiful heiress for a daughter-in-law, without me? In all probability, many prayers rose up to heaven at the same time, and combined to elicit me, the common answer to all these prayers—old Mr. Malinin’s prayer for his money; his prayer to be cured of his blindness (for the rubbing with putrefied fish is a tried remedy and may yet be successful); young Saggay Saggayitch’s prayer to see the world; Mr. Ostapenko’s prayer that his daughter after seven failures might find a suitable husband; Miss Ostapenko’s prayer that the curse of unwomanly coldness might be taken from her … all these prayers, probably, rose in one breath to the Throne, and God sent one ingenious combined answer—me. …”
Wilfred threw himself back on the vibrating railway cushions, defying the shadow of the Reverend Oswald Fawcett to find a fallacy in this modern and lucid argument.
“And if I—Wilfred Chew—was born, educated in the Wesleyan Academy, enabled to study law in the Middle Temple, London, and be called to the Bar, simply to accomplish God’s purposes for these poor helpless Russians—if this was God’s idea of a suitable education for His messenger—shall I be ashamed of supporting myself by means of the wits and the education that He has given me? Shall I refuse fair payment—prostitute the advantages God gave me—become a beggar? You will be saying next that I should have refused the rather ample traveling expenses Saggay Saggayitch handed to me on starting. Traveling expenses are necessary, even to an angel—if that angel happens to be traveling in human form on wheels. … Just so, similarly, God meant me to receive this commission”—he smacked the wad of notes on his bosom—“for drawing up the agreement and arranging the marriage—just as much as He created me—an answer to prayer—in human form and adorned me with education.”
There was no one else in that section of the compartment, and Wilfred took out the wad of notes and began counting them. The money, he was sure, was well earned; the notes had a righteous texture against his finger tips; and yet, as he ruffled them, he had a feeling that the shadow of the Reverend Oswald Fawcett in front of him was counting something beyond the notes in Wilfred’s hand—and counting that something with a reproachful eye—counting the intentions, the financial hopes of Wilfred—ghosts of notes not yet paid. “And what I say about this money I have in my hand,” persisted Wilfred to the reproving shadow, “applies with equal reason and force to the commission I intend to charge on the money I have been empowered to secure in Seoul. A just commission is in no way open to criticism. What is it but a dividend paid on that capital which we call education? Yes, it is true that the people I am acting for are ignorant people, incapable of checking my transactions. … For that very reason I feel that the trust is sacred—that I am a mouthpiece for babes and sucklings—that it is for me alone to appraise—justly and temperately—the value of my services, and to reimburse myself with an honest moderation. If I were to leave the amount of my commission to that old Mr. and Mrs. Malinin—the one so confused and senile, the other so ardent and exaggerated—they would almost certainly offer me far too much—probably the half of their fortune. Even at that they would, definitely, gain by their association with me. But no—I will refuse everything that the unthinking ardor of gratitude may inspire them to offer me; I will turn away my face, kindly but firmly, as a messenger of God should, from all extravagant offers of reward. ‘No—no,’ I shall say, and nothing will turn me from my determination. Now—to enable me to afford this perfectly correct attitude—what am I to do? What but pay myself, on a logically worked out basis, my exact commission on whatever I may get over and above old Mr. Malinin’s expectations—my exact commission—and not a sen more. The trust of these innocent barbarians in me is a challenge in itself; I would not
