The Master Craftsman

Robert shut the study door carefully, as if to exclude any chance of being overheard. The room was growing dark now, save for the gas-lamp on the opposite side of the street. He pulled down the blind, lit a reading-lamp, which threw a little circle of bright light on the papers of the writing-table, and awakened reflections on the polished walls of cedar, luminous breadths which intensified the shadows between and below. The room felt ghostly. I took a chair outside the circle of light; my cousin took his own chair in his own place within the circle. Then an odd thing happened. Someone in the other room—of course it was Isabel—began to play. She played some soft music, a reverie, a song without words, a romance, a gentle, suggestive kind of music; it acted on me as a mesmeric influence; it is a weakness which always falls upon me when I hear soft music. It falls upon my brain, and I seem to see visions and dream dreams. So while Isabel’s fingers rambled over the notes, and her music fell soft and sweet upon the soul, it seemed as if I was only sitting again where I used to sit a long time ago, and that I had just been talking of the recent loss of those jewels with my cousin, whom I suspected of the theft. And I remembered the bedside watching and the death of old John Burnikel, and the search after those diamonds, and the deplorable quarrel with my cousin and the fight that followed. I say that I remembered all this as if I myself was present at these events. Then things got mixed. I had stolen these diamonds myself. By these, and as Judge, second Baronet and third Baronet, I succeeded in gaining more wealth and distinction. But—a very important thing—time was up. My cousin’s turn was now to come.

A curious fancy—a whimsical dream. Yet it seized me and it held me. And it kept recurring. Time was up. We had had our turn. Now was the cousin’s turn. My money was all gone; my position was gone. His was just about to begin.

‘Well,’ said the boat-builder, ‘I have told you everything—all my ambitions—quite openly and freely. I have trusted you.’

‘You have.’

‘I trust a man, or I do not, by his face. That is how I engage my men. A fellow comes to me. “Oh,” I say, “you’re one of a discontented lot; you are a Socialist Anarchist—divide-and-do-nothing sort.” I know their faces. Or else I say: “You are a steady workman. You’ll do for me.” I’m never wrong. I’d take you on to-morrow over the way, with pleasure. That’s why I trusted you.’

‘All that you have said is in confidence, of course.’

‘Isabel doesn’t know, except that I mean to go ahead. Well, what you told me before tea is disturbing. All the same, I mean to go into the House as an Independent member. And I know the borough I shall choose. I shall stand for Shadwell, where they know me. As for the money that the election will cost—well, I can’t very well afford it, that’s certain, but I must plank it down. It will be an investment.’

‘Very good.’

‘Then tell me, is there anything I have forgotten? I want to stand at the next General Election. I want to begin nursing the borough at once.’

‘Perhaps—there may be—one thing,’ I replied, with hesitation.

‘What thing? I have thought it all out. I can speak. I am not afraid. I can give and take. I know the institutions of the country and their history. I know the questions of the day and the actual facts about them. I’ve got a memory like a well-ordered cupboard. What have I forgotten?’

‘You are not the man I take you for if you are offended.’

‘Nonsense, man! You can’t offend me.’ There are two or three ways of pronouncing the last four words. They may be so emphasized as to convey the highest compliment or the greatest contempt. Robert’s way inclined to the latter. He expressed moderate contempt and self-satisfied superiority. A touchy man would have been offended. I am not a touchy man; and I took the reply—compliment or contempt—with a cheerful smile, wasted because unseen in the gloom of the room. I might as well have scowled.

‘Well, then, you have forgotten one thing. That is—manners.’

‘Manners!’ In the bright light of his circle I saw his eyes flash and his cheek flame. It was as if the limit of patience had been reached. ‘Manners?’ he repeated. ‘You mean that I don’t know how to behave. I’d have you learn, then, that we behave as well at Wapping as Piccadilly.’

I have since learned that there is no social level where the charge of bad manners would not be resented. It is a beautiful thing to reflect that, however low down one may penetrate, always there is a code of manners, an ideal, a standard, and resentment of the deepest if one is charged with shortcomings in respect to that code. Robert snorted with indignation. For a moment I feared that I had mortally offended him. So I hastened to bring along what the Persian poet calls the Watering-pot of Conciliation.

‘One moment. I mean this: You have set before yourself a definite end. Your design is to become a power in the House. You cannot afford, therefore, as you very well understand, to neglect any means of attaining this end. Now, a power in the House must mean in some sense or other a man of Society. Not to know the ways and usages of Society would be the greatest possible hindrance to you. I know of one man now in the House who will never rise, simply because he is a rank social outsider; he can neither dress, nor talk, nor carry himself, like a gentleman. Tell me, for instance, do you possess that simple article, indispensable for society—the common dress-coat?’

‘No; I’ve got an office coat and a house coat and a Sunday coat. What the Devil more does a man want?’

‘Nothing more, really. But we are artificial. Have you, next, ever been to an evening dinner-party?’

‘We dine at one o’clock every day—the good old time. There are no evening dinner-parties here.’

‘It is the good old time, no doubt. Still we are, as I said, artificial, and Society dines in the evening. Now, as to a reception or a ball, or anything of that sort——’

‘Oh!’ Robert groaned. ‘What has this kind of thing got to do with me?’

‘And as to the common language of Society, and as to such simple matters as the Art and Literature and Drama of the social world——’

‘What has all this got to do with the business?’

‘A great deal. My ambitious cousin, knowledge of all your subjects will not advance you by yourself. Even oratory will not advance you by itself. You must make yourself a persona grata; you must become one of the world; you must dress, talk, act, behave in their way, not in yours. Mind, you must.’

My cousin groaned again.

‘For instance, part of manners is the art of suppressing yourself. You must learn how to conceal your aims, or, at least, not to put them forward at the wrong time. You must learn to show a less serious front.’

‘Learn to pretend—that’s what your fine manners mean.’

‘Learn to assume a side of smiles and light talk—and, perhaps, of lighter epigram. You must be able to laugh at things. Do you know that a man who can laugh has ten times greater chance than a man who is always in earnest? You will cultivate, my cousin, if you are wise, the manners, talk, ways, customs, and usages of society, before, not after, you go into the House. Believe me, if you are to rise, as seems likely, you will have to learn these things somehow, and you had better learn them quietly and at leisure before you go in.’

My cousin banged the table with his fist. ‘Good Lord!’ he cried. ‘First you tell me that I must join a party and make myself a slave, and lie, and wriggle, and cringe, and fetch, and carry, and say, and do what I am told. Do you think I would enter the House on such conditions? Never!’

‘As you please.’

‘And now you tell me, in addition, that I must learn the niminy-piminy, trumpery pretences that you call manners. Well, I won’t. You may have your manners, and I will keep mine.’

‘Then you will fail. Understand me, cousin. This is not a question of Piccadilly ways. It is one of taking your place with the members as their equal, from the outset. This is of the greatest importance to you. There are many men of your station originally, that is, who have sprung from the trading class, in the House. Some of them entered it with the same ambitions which guide you. Those of them who have got on have all managed to acquire, at the University or elsewhere, the manners of gentlemen. So must you. At present,—I speak freely—your manners are only those of a superior working man. You have lived alone in this corner, and you have forgotten the need of manners. I say that you must learn our manners. You must! You must!’

You will observe that I was at this time greatly struck with the man’s ability as well as his courage. A smaller man one would have suffered to make his way as he could, sink or swim, probably the former, from sheer ignorance of manners. But this man conquered me. I had never before met with any man who knew so much and spoke so well, and at the same time had such an excellent opinion of himself. Conceit and vanity we have with us always; they are given by kindly Providence to make up for incompetence. But that an able man should be so avowedly self-reliant is rare. I thought that the man himself justified my plain speaking.

He was staggered. ‘You can’t make me a lardy-dardy fine gentleman,’ he objected weakly.

‘There is no such thing nowadays. The young fellows are all athletes. I don’t want to make you a man of fashion or a man about town. Nothing of the sort. I want to make you a well-bred, quiet man, able to hold your own. You are built for the part; you look the part; I want to put you on a glove of velvet to hide your wrist of iron. Do you understand that?’

The prospect of hiding his wrist of iron pleased the man who desired strength above all things. The use of the velvet, and how this choice fabric lends itself to ambitious purposes, he did not, as yet, understand.

‘Well,’ he said unwillingly. ‘You may be right. Perhaps there is something in it. But if there is, I am too old to learn. Manners can’t be taught. There was no school for manners.’

I got up. ‘Before I go, Cousin Robert, I have something to tell you. All the confidences shall not be yours.’

‘Something to tell me?’ Robert looked up, but there was a discouraging want of interest in his eye, and an intimation, conveyed by his manner, that he was thinking about himself, and was not at all interested in my confidences.

‘It is not a very long confidence. Not a tenth part so long as yours.’

‘That’s good,’ said my cousin. ‘Cut along.’

‘Well, it is only this. You called upon me, you have talked to me, in the belief that I am rich.’

‘A quarter of a million of money the Judge left behind him.’

‘He did. But it is all gone. My father was unfortunate in certain transactions. He lost it all. I only found it out—found out, that is, the whole truth—yesterday, the day you called upon me.’

‘What! Lost your fortune? What are you going to do now?’

‘That I don’t know yet. Perhaps you may be able to help me. On the other hand, I may be able to help you.’

‘Have you got nothing?’

‘Two or three thousand only.’

‘Oh, he calls three thousand nothing! If I had as much! Well, what would you like to do best?’

‘Frankly, I don’t know. I have learned nothing except the use of a lathe and carpentering tools.’

‘You ought to be a boat-builder by rights.’

‘I believe I ought. Well, Robert—I may call you by your Christian name—you shall put me on to something or other. And as for me, I can introduce you at least to some pleasant people.’

‘I want useful people.’

‘They may be useful as well. You shall help me, and I will help you. Is that a bargain?’

Robert hesitated. Every business man looks upon a bargain from all points of view, and especially to see how it will benefit himself. He made up his mind, apparently, that the bargain was in his favour, for he stretched out his arm. ‘Hands upon it, cousin.’

At that moment—it was a happy omen—Isabel’s music burst into a glad triumphal march.

Then I wished him good-night. ‘We will talk further upon the point of manners,’ I said; ‘perhaps something may be done; meantime, don’t take any steps yourself.’

‘If I was to buy “The Etiquette of the Ballroom” now?’ he suggested anxiously; ‘there’s one in a shop window at Poplar.’

‘My dear fellow, you want no guide but your own experience, and that you must get somehow. Let me think a bit.’

So we parted, and I went home, thinking of nothing but this most remarkable person. Surely it would not be difficult to give him just that little knowledge of society which would prevent him from being gauche and ill at ease. Could I not myself take him in hand? I had all the time there is, and one cannot be thinking about one’s own future arrangements all day long. Suppose—suppose—suppose. And at this moment—I remember well the exact moment; it was striking nine o’clock in the club smoking-room—an inspiration fell upon me. Other people, including Frances, have called it a moment of madness, demoniac possession, the extremity of folly; but for my own part I call it an inspiration. Every such suggestion, just as every dream, may be traced to some external event. This suggestion, I am sure, was due to my having seen the old wooden bed and the sailor’s chest. That made me realize the boat-building ancestors; that gave me the strange feeling of having enjoyed the diamonds for long enough, so that it was now my cousin’s turn, and this suggested what I call an inspiration. It fell in with the new necessity for making a livelihood, with the disgust which I entertained for all the methods already proposed. I gave the thing consideration; went to bed with it; wrestled with it; got up with it; got into the bath with it; dressed with it; breakfasted with it. After breakfast I sat down for what they call calm reflection. This was the inspiration. Why should I not become a boat-builder? An honest craft is better than the tricks and wrigglings necessary in any other line of life that appeared open to me. You have seen what they were. If you think of it, the only possible way for a penniless man without a profession to get on and make money or keep himself must be a way of wriggling. I should in this way learn a trade and make myself a craftsman—a Master Craftsman, like my cousin. As for any indignity in learning a trade, I never felt any, and I am not going to allow at this time of day that there is any. Quite the contrary. If every lad learned a trade, a good many would be saved from going into the wrong line. I revolved the thing in my mind all that morning. Then I took paper and pen, and, like Robinson Crusoe, set things out plainly, pro and con. As, for instance, only to put down a few of the pros and cons.

Pro: I had lost my fortune and must change my mode of living altogether.

Con: But there was no need for me to give up my social position.

Pro: I had still enough left to start life in some trade or craft.

Con: But I knew no trade.

Pro: I had a special aptitude for cutting, and carving, and shaping, and making.

Con: But I should lose caste by going into trade.

Pro: But what if I did? You cannot keep caste without money.

And so on, with a special leaning to the pros, because my mind was already made up. I would be a boat-builder.

So at last I sat down and wrote two letters—the first to my cousin Robert, and the second to Frances.

This was the first—the important epoch-making letter:

I despatched this missive by postal messenger, and before noon received the reply: ‘Yes; come to-morrow.’

My other note was to Frances—a diplomatic note. I thought it better for the time to avoid her. Perhaps one knew beforehand the views—somewhat narrow and even prejudiced—which she would take about the craft of building boats.