Kabanata Kabanata 3 · THE SOUL OF THE SCHOOLBOY

. THE SOUL OF THE SCHOOLBOY

A large map of London would be needed to display the wild and zigzag

course of one day's journey undertaken by an uncle and his nephew;

or, to speak more truly, of a nephew and his uncle. For the nephew,

a schoolboy on a holiday, was in theory the god in the car, or in

the cab, tram, tube, and so on, while his uncle was at most a priest

dancing before him and offering sacrifices. To put it more soberly,

the schoolboy had something of the stolid air of a young duke doing

the grand tour, while his elderly relative was reduced to the

position of a courier, who nevertheless had to pay for everything

like a patron. The schoolboy was officially known as Summers Minor,

and in a more social manner as Stinks, the only public tribute to

his career as an amateur photographer and electrician. The uncle was

the Rev. Thomas Twyford, a lean and lively old gentleman with a red,

eager face and white hair. He was in the ordinary way a country

clergyman, but he was one of those who achieve the paradox of being

famous in an obscure way, because they are famous in an obscure

world. In a small circle of ecclesiastical archaeologists, who were

the only people who could even understand one another's discoveries,

he occupied a recognized and respectable place. And a critic might

have found even in that day's journey at least as much of the

uncle's hobby as of the nephew's holiday.

His original purpose had been wholly paternal and festive. But,

like many other intelligent people, he was not above the weakness of

playing with a toy to amuse himself, on the theory that it would

amuse a child. His toys were crowns and miters and croziers and

swords of state; and he had lingered over them, telling himself that

the boy ought to see all the sights of London. And at the end of the

day, after a tremendous tea, he rather gave the game away by winding

up with a visit in which hardly any human boy could be conceived as

taking an interest--an underground chamber supposed to have been a

chapel, recently excavated on the north bank of the Thames, and

containing literally nothing whatever but one old silver coin. But

the coin, to those who knew, was more solitary and splendid than the

Koh-i-noor. It was Roman, and was said to bear the head of St. Paul;

and round it raged the most vital controversies about the ancient

British Church. It could hardly be denied, however, that the

controversies left Summers Minor comparatively cold.

Indeed, the things that interested Summers Minor, and the things

that did not interest him, had mystified and amused his uncle for

several hours. He exhibited the English schoolboy's startling

ignorance and startling knowledge--knowledge of some special

classification in which he can generally correct and confound his

elders. He considered himself entitled, at Hampton Court on a

holiday, to forget the very names of Cardinal Wolsey or William of

Orange; but he could hardly be dragged from some details about the

arrangement of the electric bells in the neighboring hotel. He was

solidly dazed by Westminster Abbey, which is not so unnatural since

that church became the lumber room of the larger and less successful

statuary of the eighteenth century. But he had a magic and minute

knowledge of the Westminster omnibuses, and indeed of the whole

omnibus system of London, the colors and numbers of which he knew as

a herald knows heraldry. He would cry out against a momentary

confusion between a light-green Paddington and a dark-green

Bayswater vehicle, as his uncle would at the identification of a

Greek ikon and a Roman image.

"Do you collect omnibuses like stamps?" asked his uncle. "They must

need a rather large album. Or do you keep them in your locker?"

"I keep them in my head," replied the nephew, with legitimate

firmness.

"It does you credit, I admit," replied the clergyman. "I suppose it

were vain to ask for what purpose you have learned that out of a

thousand things. There hardly seems to be a career in it, unless you

could be permanently on the pavement to prevent old ladies getting

into the wrong bus. Well, we must get out of this one, for this is

our place. I want to show you what they call St. Paul's Penny."

"Is it like St. Paul's Cathedral?" asked the youth with resignation,

as they alighted.

At the entrance their eyes were arrested by a singular figure

evidently hovering there with a similar anxiety to enter. It was

that of a dark, thin man in a long black robe rather like a cassock;

but the black cap on his head was of too strange a shape to be a

biretta. It suggested, rather, some archaic headdress of Persia or

Babylon. He had a curious black beard appearing only at the corners

of his chin, and his large eyes were oddly set in his face like the

flat decorative eyes painted in old Egyptian profiles. Before they

had gathered more than a general impression of him, he had dived

into the doorway that was their own destination.

Nothing could be seen above ground of the sunken sanctuary except a

strong wooden hut, of the sort recently run up for many military and

official purposes, the wooden floor of which was indeed a mere

platform over the excavated cavity below. A soldier stood as a

sentry outside, and a superior soldier, an Anglo-Indian officer of

distinction, sat writing at the desk inside. Indeed, the sightseers

soon found that this particular sight was surrounded with the most

extraordinary precautions. I have compared the silver coin to the

Koh-i-noor, and in one sense it was even conventionally comparable,

since by a historical accident it was at one time almost counted

among the Crown jewels, or at least the Crown relics, until one of

the royal princes publicly restored it to the shrine to which it was

supposed to belong. Other causes combined to concentrate official

vigilance upon it; there had been a scare about spies carrying

explosives in small objects, and one of those experimental orders

which pass like waves over bureaucracy had decreed first that all

visitors should change their clothes for a sort of official

sackcloth, and then (when this method caused some murmurs) that they

should at least turn out their pockets. Colonel Morris, the officer

in charge, was a short, active man with a grim and leathery face,

but a lively and humorous eye--a contradiction borne out by his

conduct, for he at once derided the safeguards and yet insisted on

them.

"I don't care a button myself for Paul's Penny, or such things," he

admitted in answer to some antiquarian openings from the clergyman

who was slightly acquainted with him, "but I wear the King's coat,

you know, and it's a serious thing when the King's uncle leaves a

thing here with his own hands under my charge. But as for saints and

relics and things, I fear I'm a bit of a Voltairian; what you would

call a skeptic."

"I'm not sure it's even skeptical to believe in the royal family and

not in the 'Holy' Family," replied Mr. Twyford. "But, of course, I

can easily empty my pockets, to show I don't carry a bomb."

The little heap of the parson's possessions which he left on the

table consisted chiefly of papers, over and above a pipe and a

tobacco pouch and some Roman and Saxon coins. The rest were

catalogues of old books, and pamphlets, like one entitled "The Use

of Sarum," one glance at which was sufficient both for the colonel

and the schoolboy. They could not see the use of Sarum at all. The

contents of the boy's pockets naturally made a larger heap, and

included marbles, a ball of string, an electric torch, a magnet, a

small catapult, and, of course, a large pocketknife, almost to be

described as a small tool box, a complex apparatus on which he

seemed disposed to linger, pointing out that it included a pair of

nippers, a tool for punching holes in wood, and, above all, an

instrument for taking stones out of a horse's hoof. The comparative

absence of any horse he appeared to regard as irrelevant, as if it

were a mere appendage easily supplied. But when the turn came of the

gentleman in the black gown, he did not turn out his pockets, but

merely spread out his hands.

"I have no possessions," he said.

"I'm afraid I must ask you to empty your pockets and make sure,"

observed the colonel, gruffly.

"I have no pockets," said the stranger.

Mr. Twyford was looking at the long black gown with a learned eye.

"Are you a monk?" he asked, in a puzzled fashion.

"I am a magus," replied the stranger. "You have heard of the magi,

perhaps? I am a magician."

"Oh, I say!" exclaimed Summers Minor, with prominent eyes.

"But I was once a monk," went on the other. "I am what you would

call an escaped monk. Yes, I have escaped into eternity. But the

monks held one truth at least, that the highest life should be

without possessions. I have no pocket money and no pockets, and all

the stars are my trinkets."

"They are out of reach, anyhow," observed Colonel Morris, in a tone

which suggested that it was well for them. "I've known a good many

magicians myself in India--mango plant and all. But the Indian ones

are all frauds, I'll swear. In fact, I had a good deal of fun

showing them up. More fun than I have over this dreary job, anyhow.

But here comes Mr. Symon, who will show you over the old cellar

downstairs."

Mr. Symon, the official guardian and guide, was a young man,

prematurely gray, with a grave mouth which contrasted curiously with

a very small, dark mustache with waxed points, that seemed somehow,

separate from it, as if a black fly had settled on his face. He

spoke with the accent of Oxford and the permanent official, but in

as dead a fashion as the most indifferent hired guide. They

descended a dark stone staircase, at the floor of which Symon

pressed a button and a door opened on a dark room, or, rather, a

room which had an instant before been dark. For almost as the heavy

iron door swung open an almost blinding blaze of electric lights

filled the whole interior. The fitful enthusiasm of Stinks at once

caught fire, and he eagerly asked if the lights and the door worked

together.

"Yes, it's all one system," replied Symon. "It was all fitted up

for the day His Royal Highness deposited the thing here. You see,

it's locked up behind a glass case exactly as he left it."

A glance showed that the arrangements for guarding the treasure were

indeed as strong as they were simple. A single pane of glass cut off

one corner of the room, in an iron framework let into the rock walls

and the wooden roof above; there was now no possibility of reopening

the case without elaborate labor, except by breaking the glass,

which would probably arouse the night watchman who was always within

a few feet of it, even if he had fallen asleep. A close examination

would have showed many more ingenious safeguards; but the eye of the

Rev. Thomas Twyford, at least, was already riveted on what

interested him much more--the dull silver disk which shone in the

white light against a plain background of black velvet.

"St. Paul's Penny, said to commemorate the visit of St. Paul to

Britain, was probably preserved in this chapel until the eighth

century," Symon was saying in his clear but colorless voice. "In the

ninth century it is supposed to have been carried away by the

barbarians, and it reappears, after the conversion of the northern

Goths, in the possession of the royal family of Gothland. His Royal

Highness, the Duke of Gothland, retained it always in his own

private custody, and when he decided to exhibit it to the public,

placed it here with his own hand. It was immediately sealed up in

such a manner--"

Unluckily at this point Summers Minor, whose attention had somewhat

strayed from the religious wars of the ninth century, caught sight

of a short length of wire appearing in a broken patch in the wall.

He precipitated himself at it, calling out, "I say, does that

connect?"

It was evident that it did connect, for no sooner had the boy given

it a twitch than the whole room went black, as if they had all been

struck blind, and an instant afterward they heard the dull crash of

the closing door.

"Well, you've done it now," said Symon, in his tranquil fashion.

Then after a pause he added, "I suppose they'll miss us sooner or

later, and no doubt they can get it open; but it may take some

little time."

There was a silence, and then the unconquerable Stinks observed:

"Rotten that I had to leave my electric torch."

"I think," said his uncle, with restraint, "that we are sufficiently

convinced of your interest in electricity."

Then after a pause he remarked, more amiably: "I suppose if I

regretted any of my own impedimenta, it would be the pipe. Though,

as a matter of fact, it's not much fun smoking in the dark.

Everything seems different in the dark."

"Everything is different in the dark," said a third voice, that of

the man who called himself a magician. It was a very musical voice,

and rather in contrast with his sinister and swarthy visage, which

was now invisible. "Perhaps you don't know how terrible a truth that

is. All you see are pictures made by the sun, faces and furniture

and flowers and trees. The things themselves may be quite strange to

you. Something else may be standing now where you saw a table or a

chair. The face of your friend may be quite different in the dark."

A short, indescribable noise broke the stillness. Twyford started

for a second, and then said, sharply:

"Really, I don't think it's a suitable occasion for trying to

frighten a child."

"Who's a child?" cried the indignant Summers, with a voice that had

a crow, but also something of a crack in it. "And who's a funk,

either? Not me."

"I will be silent, then," said the other voice out of the darkness.

"But silence also makes and unmakes."

The required silence remained unbroken for a long time until at last

the clergyman said to Symon in a low voice:

"I suppose it's all right about air?"

"Oh, yes," replied the other aloud; "there's a fireplace and a

chimney in the office just by the door."

A bound and the noise of a falling chair told them that the

irrepressible rising generation had once more thrown itself across

the room. They heard the ejaculation: "A chimney! Why, I'll be--"

and the rest was lost in muffled, but exultant, cries.

The uncle called repeatedly and vainly, groped his way at last to

the opening, and, peering up it, caught a glimpse of a disk of

daylight, which seemed to suggest that the fugitive had vanished in

safety. Making his way back to the group by the glass case, he fell

over the fallen chair and took a moment to collect himself again. He

had opened his mouth to speak to Symon, when he stopped, and

suddenly found himself blinking in the full shock of the white

light, and looking over the other man's shoulder, he saw that the

door was standing open.

"So they've got at us at last," he observed to Symon.

The man in the black robe was leaning against the wall some yards

away, with a smile carved on his face.

"Here comes Colonel Morris," went on Twyford, still speaking to

Symon. "One of us will have to tell him how the light went out. Will

you?"

But Symon still said nothing. He was standing as still as a statue,

and looking steadily at the black velvet behind the glass screen. He

was looking at the black velvet because there was nothing else to

look at. St. Paul's Penny was gone.

Colonel Morris entered the room with two new visitors; presumably

two new sightseers delayed by the accident. The foremost was a tall,

fair, rather languid-looking man with a bald brow and a high-bridged

nose; his companion was a younger man with light, curly hair and

frank, and even innocent, eyes. Symon scarcely seemed to hear the

newcomers; it seemed almost as if he had not realized that the

return of the light revealed his brooding attitude. Then he started

in a guilty fashion, and when he saw the elder of the two strangers,

his pale face seemed to turn a shade paler.

"Why it's Horne Fisher!" and then after a pause he said in a low

voice, "I'm in the devil of a hole, Fisher."

"There does seem a bit of a mystery to be cleared up," observed the

gentleman so addressed.

"It will never be cleared up," said the pale Symon. "If anybody

could clear it up, you could. But nobody could."

"I rather think I could," said another voice from outside the group,

and they turned in surprise to realize that the man in the black

robe had spoken again.

"You!" said the colonel, sharply. "And how do you propose to play

the detective?"

"I do not propose to play the detective," answered the other, in a

clear voice like a bell. "I propose to play the magician. One of the

magicians you show up in India, Colonel."

No one spoke for a moment, and then Horne Fisher surprised everybody

by saying, "Well, let's go upstairs, and this gentleman can have a

try."

He stopped Symon, who had an automatic finger on the button, saying:

"No, leave all the lights on. It's a sort of safeguard."

"The thing can't be taken away now," said Symon, bitterly.

"It can be put back," replied Fisher.

Twyford had already run upstairs for news of his vanishing nephew,

and he received news of him in a way that at once puzzled and

reassured him. On the floor above lay one of those large paper darts

which boys throw at each other when the schoolmaster is out of the

room. It had evidently been thrown in at the window, and on being

unfolded displayed a scrawl of bad handwriting which ran: "Dear

Uncle; I am all right. Meet you at the hotel later on," and then the

signature.

Insensibly comforted by this, the clergyman found his thoughts

reverting voluntarily to his favorite relic, which came a good

second in his sympathies to his favorite nephew, and before he knew

where he was he found himself encircled by the group discussing its

loss, and more or less carried away on the current of their

excitement. But an undercurrent of query continued to run in his

mind, as to what had really happened to the boy, and what was the

boy's exact definition of being all right.

Meanwhile Horne Fisher had considerably puzzled everybody with his

new tone and attitude. He had talked to the colonel about the

military and mechanical arrangements, and displayed a remarkable

knowledge both of the details of discipline and the technicalities

of electricity. He had talked to the clergyman, and shown an equally

surprising knowledge of the religious and historical interests

involved in the relic. He had talked to the man who called himself a

magician, and not only surprised but scandalized the company by an

equally sympathetic familiarity with the most fantastic forms of

Oriental occultism and psychic experiment. And in this last and

least respectable line of inquiry he was evidently prepared to go

farthest; he openly encouraged the magician, and was plainly

prepared to follow the wildest ways of investigation in which that

magus might lead him.

"How would you begin now?" he inquired, with an anxious politeness

that reduced the colonel to a congestion of rage.

"It is all a question of a force; of establishing communications for

a force," replied that adept, affably, ignoring some military

mutterings about the police force. "It is what you in the West used

to call animal magnetism, but it is much more than that. I had

better not say how much more. As to setting about it, the usual

method is to throw some susceptible person into a trance, which

serves as a sort of bridge or cord of communication, by which the

force beyond can give him, as it were, an electric shock, and awaken

his higher senses. It opens the sleeping eye of the mind."

"I'm suspectible," said Fisher, either with simplicity or with a

baffling irony. "Why not open my mind's eye for me? My friend Harold

March here will tell you I sometimes see things, even in the dark."

"Nobody sees anything except in the dark," said the magician.

Heavy clouds of sunset were closing round the wooden hut, enormous

clouds, of which only the corners could be seen in the little

window, like purple horns and tails, almost as if some huge monsters

were prowling round the place. But the purple was already deepening

to dark gray; it would soon be night.

"Do not light the lamp," said the magus with quiet authority,

arresting a movement in that direction. "I told you before that

things happen only in the dark."

How such a topsy-turvy scene ever came to be tolerated in the

colonel's office, of all places, was afterward a puzzle in the

memory of many, including the colonel. They recalled it like a sort

of nightmare, like something they could not control. Perhaps there

was really a magnetism about the mesmerist; perhaps there was even

more magnetism about the man mesmerized. Anyhow, the man was being

mesmerized, for Horne Fisher had collapsed into a chair with his

long limbs loose and sprawling and his eyes staring at vacancy; and

the other man was mesmerizing him, making sweeping movements with

his darkly draped arms as if with black wings. The colonel had

passed the point of explosion, and he dimly realized that eccentric

aristocrats are allowed their fling. He comforted himself with the

knowledge that he had already sent for the police, who would break

up any such masquerade, and with lighting a cigar, the red end of

which, in the gathering darkness, glowed with protest.

"Yes, I see pockets," the man in the trance was saying. "I see many

pockets, but they are all empty. No; I see one pocket that is not

empty."

There was a faint stir in the stillness, and the magician said, "Can

you see what is in the pocket?"

"Yes," answered the other; "there are two bright things. I think

they are two bits of steel. One of the pieces of steel is bent or

crooked."

"Have they been used in the removal of the relic from downstairs?"

"Yes."

There was another pause and the inquirer added, "Do you see anything

of the relic itself?"

"I see something shining on the floor, like the shadow or the ghost

of it. It is over there in the corner beyond the desk."

There was a movement of men turning and then a sudden stillness, as

of their stiffening, for over in the corner on the wooden floor

there was really a round spot of pale light. It was the only spot of

light in the room. The cigar had gone out.

"It points the way," came the voice of the oracle. "The spirits are

pointing the way to penitence, and urging the thief to restitution.

I can see nothing more." His voice trailed off into a silence that

lasted solidly for many minutes, like the long silence below when

the theft had been committed. Then it was broken by the ring of

metal on the floor, and the sound of something spinning and falling

like a tossed halfpenny.

"Light the lamp!" cried Fisher in a loud and even jovial voice,

leaping to his feet with far less languor than usual. "I must be

going now, but I should like to see it before I go. Why, I came on

purpose to see it."

The lamp was lit, and he did see it, for St. Paul's Penny was lying

on the floor at his feet.

"Oh, as for that," explained Fisher, when he was entertaining March

and Twyford at lunch about a month later, "I merely wanted to play

with the magician at his own game."

"I thought you meant to catch him in his own trap," said Twyford.

"I can't make head or tail of anything yet, but to my mind he was

always the suspect. I don't think he was necessarily a thief in the

vulgar sense. The police always seem to think that silver is stolen

for the sake of silver, but a thing like that might well be stolen

out of some religious mania. A runaway monk turned mystic might well

want it for some mystical purpose."

"No," replied Fisher, "the runaway monk is not a thief. At any rate

he is not the thief. And he's not altogether a liar, either. He said

one true thing at least that night."

"And what was that?" inquired March.

"He said it was all magnetism. As a matter of fact, it was done by

means of a magnet." Then, seeing they still looked puzzled, he

added, "It was that toy magnet belonging to your nephew, Mr.

Twyford."

"But I don't understand," objected March. "If it was done with the

schoolboy's magnet, I suppose it was done by the schoolboy."

"Well," replied Fisher, reflectively, "it rather depends which

schoolboy."

"What on earth do you mean?"

"The soul of a schoolboy is a curious thing," Fisher continued, in a

meditative manner. "It can survive a great many things besides

climbing out of a chimney. A man can grow gray in great campaigns,

and still have the soul of a schoolboy. A man can return with a

great reputation from India and be put in charge of a great public

treasure, and still have the soul of a schoolboy, waiting to be

awakened by an accident. And it is ten times more so when to the

schoolboy you add the skeptic, who is generally a sort of stunted

schoolboy. You said just now that things might be done by religious

mania. Have you ever heard of irreligious mania? I assure you it

exists very violently, especially in men who like showing up

magicians in India. But here the skeptic had the temptation of

showing up a much more tremendous sham nearer home."

A light came into Harold March's eyes as he suddenly saw, as if afar

off, the wider implication of the suggestion. But Twyford was still

wrestling with one problem at a time.

"Do you really mean," he said, "that Colonel Morris took the relic?"

"He was the only person who could use the magnet," replied Fisher.

"In fact, your obliging nephew left him a number of things he could

use. He had a ball of string, and an instrument for making a hole in

the wooden floor--I made a little play with that hole in the floor

in my trance, by the way; with the lights left on below, it shone

like a new shilling." Twyford suddenly bounded on his chair. "But in

that case," he cried, in a new and altered voice, "why then of

course-- You said a piece of steel--?"

"I said there were two pieces of steel," said Fisher. "The bent

piece of steel was the boy's magnet. The other was the relic in the

glass case."

"But that is silver," answered the archaeologist, in a voice now

almost unrecognizable.

"Oh," replied Fisher, soothingly, "I dare say it was painted with

silver a little."

There was a heavy silence, and at last Harold March said, "But where

is the real relic?"

"Where it has been for five years," replied Horne Fisher, "in the

possession of a mad millionaire named Vandam, in Nebraska. There was

a playful little photograph about him in a society paper the other

day, mentioning his delusion, and saying he was always being taken

in about relics."

Harold March frowned at the tablecloth; then, after an interval, he

said: "I think I understand your notion of how the thing was

actually done; according to that, Morris just made a hole and fished

it up with a magnet at the end of a string. Such a monkey trick

looks like mere madness, but I suppose he was mad, partly with the

boredom of watching over what he felt was a fraud, though he

couldn't prove it. Then came a chance to prove it, to himself at

least, and he had what he called 'fun' with it. Yes, I think I see a

lot of details now. But it's just the whole thing that knocks me.

How did it all come to be like that?"

Fisher was looking at him with level lids and an immovable manner.

"Every precaution was taken," he said. "The Duke carried the relic

on his own person, and locked it up in the case with his own hands."

March was silent; but Twyford stammered. "I don't understand you.

You give me the creeps. Why don't you speak plainer?"

"If I spoke plainer you would understand me less," said Horne

Fisher.

"All the same I should try," said March, still without lifting his

head.

"Oh, very well," replied Fisher, with a sigh; "the plain truth is,

of course, that it's a bad business. Everybody knows it's a bad

business who knows anything about it. But it's always happening, and

in one way one can hardly blame them. They get stuck on to a foreign

princess that's as stiff as a Dutch doll, and they have their fling.

In this case it was a pretty big fling."

The face of the Rev. Thomas Twyford certainly suggested that he was

a little out of his depth in the seas of truth, but as the other

went on speaking vaguely the old gentleman's features sharpened and

set.

"If it were some decent morganatic affair I wouldn't say; but he

must have been a fool to throw away thousands on a woman like that.

At the end it was sheer blackmail; but it's something that the old

ass didn't get it out of the taxpayers. He could only get it out of

the Yank, and there you are."

The Rev. Thomas Twyford had risen to his feet.

"Well, I'm glad my nephew had nothing to do with it," he said. "And

if that's what the world is like, I hope he will never have anything

to do with it."

"I hope not," answered Horne Fisher. "No one knows so well as I do

that one can have far too much to do with it."

For Summers Minor had indeed nothing to do with it; and it is part

of his higher significance that he has really nothing to do with the

story, or with any such stories. The boy went like a bullet through

the tangle of this tale of crooked politics and crazy mockery and

came out on the other side, pursuing his own unspoiled purposes.

From the top of the chimney he climbed he had caught sight of a new

omnibus, whose color and name he had never known, as a naturalist

might see a new bird or a botanist a new flower. And he had been

sufficiently enraptured in rushing after it, and riding away upon

that fairy ship.