第34章

"Why do people do these things?" he demanded."Even an amateur artist must have SOME sense.Can't they see what is happening?

There's that thing of hers hanging in the passage.I put it in the passage because there's not much light in the passage.She's labelled it Reverie.If she had called it Influenza I could have understood it.I asked her where she got the idea from, and she said she saw the sky like that one evening in Norfolk.Great Heavens! then why didn't she shut her eyes or go home and hide behind the bed-curtains? If I had seen a sky like that in Norfolk Ishould have taken the first train back to London.I suppose the poor girl can't help seeing these things, but why paint them?"I said, "I suppose painting is a necessity to some natures.""But why give the things to me?" he pleaded.

I could offer him no adequate reason.

"The idiotic presents that people give you!" he continued."I said I'd like Tennyson's poems one year.They had worried me to know what I did want.I didn't want anything really; that was the only thing I could think of that I wasn't dead sure I didn't want.Well, they clubbed together, four of them, and gave me Tennyson in twelve volumes, illustrated with coloured photographs.They meant kindly, of course.If you suggest a tobacco-pouch they give you a blue velvet bag capable of holding about a pound, embroidered with flowers, life-size.The only way one could use it would be to put a strap to it and wear it as a satchel.Would you believe it, I have got a velvet smoking-jacket, ornamented with forget-me-nots and butterflies in coloured silk; I'm not joking.And they ask me why Inever wear it.I'll bring it down to the Club one of these nights and wake the place up a bit: it needs it."We had arrived by this at the steps of the 'Devonshire.'

"And I'm just as bad," he went on, "when I give presents.I never give them what they want.I never hit upon anything that is of any use to anybody.If I give Jane a chinchilla tippet, you may be certain chinchilla is the most out-of-date fur that any woman could wear.'Oh! that is nice of you,' she says; 'now that is just the very thing I wanted.I will keep it by me till chinchilla comes in again.' I give the girls watch-chains when nobody is wearing watch-chains.When watch-chains are all the rage I give them ear-rings, and they thank me, and suggest my taking them to a fancy-dress ball, that being their only chance to wear the confounded things.I waste money on white gloves with black backs, to find that white gloves with black backs stamp a woman as suburban.I believe all the shop-keepers in London save their old stock to palm it off on me at Christmas time.And why does it always take half-a-dozen people to serve you with a pair of gloves, I'd like to know? Only last week Jane asked me to get her some gloves for that last Mansion House affair.I was feeling amiable, and I thought I would do the thing handsomely.I hate going into a draper's shop; everybody stares at a man as if he were forcing his way into the ladies' department of a Turkish bath.One of those marionette sort of men came up to me and said it was a fine morning.

What the devil did I want to talk about the morning to him for? Isaid I wanted some gloves.I described them to the best of my recollection.I said, 'I want them four buttons, but they are not to be button-gloves; the buttons are in the middle and they reach up to the elbow, if you know what I mean.' He bowed, and said he understood exactly what I meant, which was a damned sight more than I did.I told him I wanted three pair cream and three pair fawn-coloured, and the fawn-coloured were to be swedes.He corrected me.He said I meant 'Suede.' I dare say he was right, but the interruption put me off, and I had to begin over again.He listened attentively until I had finished.I guess I was about five minutes standing with him there close to the door.He said, 'Is that all you require, sir, this morning?' I said it was.

"' Thank you, sir,' he replied.'This way, please, sir.'

"He took me into another room, and there we met a man named Jansen, to whom he briefly introduced me as a gentleman who 'desired gloves.' 'Yes, sir,' said Mr.Jansen; and what sort of gloves do you desire?'

"I told him I wanted six pairs altogether--three suede, fawn-coloured, and three cream-coloured--kids.

"He said, 'Do you mean kid gloves, sir, or gloves for children?'

"He made me angry by that.I told him I was not in the habit of using slang.Nor am I when buying gloves.He said he was sorry.Iexplained to him about the buttons, so far as I could understand it myself, and about the length.I asked him to see to it that the buttons were sewn on firmly, and that the stitching everywhere was perfect, adding that the last gloves my wife had had of his firm had been most unsatisfactory.Jane had impressed upon me to add that.

She said it would make them more careful.

"He listened to me in rapt ecstacy.I might have been music.

"'And what size, sir?' he asked.

"I had forgotten that.'Oh, sixes,' I answered, 'unless they are very stretchy indeed, in which case they had better be five and three-quarter.'

"'Oh, and the stitching on the cream is to be black,' I added.That was another thing I had forgotten.

"'Thank you very much,' said Mr.Jansen; 'is there anything else that you require this morning?'

"'No, thank you,' I replied, 'not this morning.' I was beginning to like the man.

"He took me for quite a walk, and wherever we went everybody left off what they were doing to stare at me.I was getting tired when we reached the glove department.He marched me up to a young man who was sticking pins into himself.He said 'Gloves,' and disappeared through a curtain.The young man left off sticking pins into himself, and leant across the counter.

"'Ladies' gloves or gentlemen's gloves?' he said.

"Well, I was pretty mad by this time, as you can guess.It is funny when you come to think of it afterwards, but the wonder then was that I didn't punch his head.