Fancies and Goodnights - Collier John - Страница 42
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THE DEVIL GEORGE AND ROSIE
There was a young man who was invariably spurned by the girls, not because he smelt at all bad, but because he happened to be as ugly as a monkey. He had a good heart, but this soured it, and though he would grudgingly admit that the female kind were very agreeable in shape, size, and texture, he thought that in all other respects they were the most stupid, blind, perverse, and ill-natured bitches that had ever infested the earth.
He expressed this view very forcefully, and on all possible occasions. One evening he was holding forth to a circle of his cronies: it was in the Horseshoe Bar, at the bottom of the Tottenham Court Road. He could not help noticing that his remarks attracted the interest of a smart and saturnine individual seated at the next table, who had the rather repulsive look of a detective dressed up in evening clothes for the purpose of spying on a night-club.
Our friend was in no wise abashed by this scrutiny, but continued to say exactly what girls were, and what they did whenever they got the chance. He, who had least evidence for it of any man in the world, seemed to think they were unduly inclined to lasciviousness. «Or else,» said he, «in the other extreme, they are mercenary prudes, or sadistical Dianas, whose delight it is to kindle the fires of Hell in a man's bosom and elsewhere, and triumphantly to describe his agonies to their little friends. I speak of the fires of Hell — I wish they existed in reality, so that these harpies and teasers might be sent there, and I myself would go willingly, if only I could watch them frizzle and fry.»
With that, he got up and went home. You may imagine his astonishment, when he had climbed the high stairs to his poor student's room, to find the dark and cynical stranger, who had been watching him in the bar, now standing very much at his ease upon the hearth-rug. At the very first glance, he realized this was none other than the Devil himself, in whom for many years he had had no belief at all. «I cannot easily describe,» said that worthy, with the easy air of a man of the world, «the pleasure it gives me to meet one of such insight and intelligence as Mr. George Postlethwaite.»
George made several sorts of protest, but the Devil smiled and bowed like an ambassador. In the end he had buttered up George to some effect, and carried him off to supper in a little restaurant in Jermyn Street. It must be admitted, he stood a superb bottle of wine.
«I was vastly intrigued,» said he, «by the views I heard you expressing earlier this evening. Possibly, of course, they were born of a mere passing petulance, pique, wounded vanity — call it what you will?»
«The devil take me if they were!» cried George.
«Splendid!» said his companion. «We are getting on like a house on fire. Now, my dear chap, my little difficulty is this. The domain over which I have the honour and pleasure to preside was designed originally on the most ample scale, but, nevertheless, certain recent tendencies are fast rendering its confines too narrow, and its supervision too onerous, for one who is not as young as he was.»
«Sorry to hear that,» said George.
«I could cope with the increase of the population of this planet,» said the Devil. «I might have coped even with the emancipation of women. But unfortunately the two are connected, and form a vicious circle —»
«I see exactly what you mean,» said George.
«I wish I had never invented that particular sin,» said the Devil. «I do indeed. There are a thousand million women in the world at this moment, and, with one or two negligible exceptions, every single one of them is damned.»
«Fine!» said George.
«Very fine indeed,» said the Devil, «from the artistic point of view. But consider the pressure on space, and the ceaseless strain of organization.»
«Squeeze 'em in!» cried George with enthusiasm. «Pack 'em tight. That's what I say.»
«They would then imagine themselves at a party,» replied his new friend, «and that would never do. No, no. Everyoue who comes to me must have individual attention. I intend to open a new department. The site is chosen. The builders are at work. All I need is a superintendent of iron personality.»
«I should like to know a little about the climate, salary, and prospects,» said George, in a business-like tone.
«The climate, much like that of Oxford Street on a summer afternoon,» replied the Devil. «The salary is power, and the prospects are infinite. But if you are interested, my dear fellow, allow me to show you over the place. In any case, I should value your opinion on it»
No sooner said than done. They sank into the bowels of the earth, and came out in a suburb of Sydney, N.S.W.
«Here we are, then!» cried George.
«No, no,» said the Devil «Just a little farther on.»
They proceeded with the speed of rockets to the northeast corner of the universe, which George now perceived to be shaped exactly like a pint of beer, in which the nebulae were the ascending bubbles. He observed with alarm a pair of enormous lips approaching the upper rim of our space. «Do not be alarmed,» said the Devil. «That is a young medical student called Prior, who has failed his exam three times in succession. However, it will be twenty million billion light years before his lips reach the glass, for a young woman is fixing him with her eye, and by the time he drinks all the bubbles will be gone, and all will be flat and stale.»
«Poor fellow!» cried our hero. «Damn these women!»
«Do not pity him,» said the Devil very tolerantly. «This is his fifth pint, and he is already as drunk as a lord, and closing time draws near. What's more, our destination is at hand.»
George saw that they were nearing what is sometimes called a «fish» in this considerable pint of beer. As they approached it, he saw it was a dark star of gigantic proportions, about which circled a satellite many hundred times larger than the earth.
«That satellite,» said his conductor, «is the spot I am proposing to colonize with my new department. We will go straight there, if you have no objection.»
George assenting, they landed in a sterile and saturnine country, close by a palace of black basalt, which covered about a square mile of ground.
«That's a snug-looking box!» observed our hero. «Merely a pioneer's hut,» said his companion. «My future overseer will have to rough it there until something better can be fixed up for him.»
George, however, noticed a prodigious number of barrels being run down into a cellar on the hinder side of this palace. What's more, he saw several groups of fiends, who should have been at their work, squatting in one of the unfinished galleries, with cards in their hands.
«You actually play poker here?» said he, in tones of the liveliest satisfaction.
«We are connoisseurs of every pleasure,» replied the Devil, with a smile. «And when we play cards, everyoue has an excellent hand.»
He showed George a number of masterly pictures; some of them were a little indecent. There were also very splendid kitchens, already staffed with cooks; kennels, stables, falconries, gun rooms, music rooms, grand halls, little cosy rooms, rooms devoted to every sort of pastime, and gardens laid out rather like those of Versailles, only very much larger. There was a whole cellar full of fireworks of every description. Not only these, but there were a number of other delights, of a nature entirely new to the visitor. There was an observatory, for example, from which the behaviour of any young woman in the world could be closely inspected. «This is really a very interesting device,» murmured our hero.
«Come!» said the fiend. «We must not stay here all day. Doubtless you will want to see the rest of your domain.»
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