Fancy Free

I WASN’T even thinking of the fool. It is enough to be in the same market on ’Change with Norton Bellamy, and outside my office or the House I like to forget him.

But long ago he joined the City of London Club, to my great regret, and now, in the smoking-room after lunch, during my cup of coffee, cigar, and game of dominoes, he will too often hurl himself uninvited into a conversation that he is neither asked to join nor desired to enlighten.

Upon a day in January last my friend George Mathers had a chill on the liver, and was suffering under sustained professional ill-fortune. From his standpoint, therefore, in the Kaffir Market, he looked out at the world and agreed with Carlyle’s unreasonable estimate of mankind. As a jobber in a large way he came to this conclusion; while I, who am a broker and a member of the Committee, could by no means agree with him.

“The spirit of common-sense must be reckoned with,” I explained to Mathers. “This nation stands where it does by right of that virtue. Take the giving and receiving of advice. You may draw a line through that. There is a rare, a notable genius for giving advice in this country. The war illustrates my point. You will find every journal full of advice given by civilians to soldiers, by soldiers to civilians, by the man in the street to the man in the Cabinet, and by the man in the Cabinet to the man in the street. We think for ourselves, develop abnormal common-sense, and as a consequence, I maintain that much more good advice is given than bad.”

But Mathers, what with his chilled liver and business depression, was unreasonable. He derided my contention. He flouted it. He raised his voice in hard, simulated laughter, and attracted other men from their coffee and cigars. When he had won their attention, he tried to crush me publicly. He said:

“My dear chap, out of your own mouth I will confute you. If more good advice is given than bad, every man will get more good than harm by following advice. That’s logical; but you won’t pretend to maintain such a ridiculous position, surely?”

I like a war of words after luncheon. It sharpens the wits and assists digestion. So, without being particularly in earnest, I supported my contention.

“Assuredly,” I said. “We don’t take enough advice, in my opinion—just as we don’t take enough exercise or wholesome food. It is too much the fashion to ask advice and not take it. But if we modelled our lives on the disinterested opinion of other people, and availed ourselves of the combined judgment of our fellows, the world would be both happier and wiser in many directions. And if men knew when they were invited to express an opinion that it was no mere conventional piece of civility or empty compliment which prompted us to ask their criticism, consider how they would put their best powers forward. Yes, one who consistently followed the advice of his fellow-creatures would be paying a compliment to humanity and——”

“Qualifying himself for a lunatic asylum!” Here burst in the blatant Bellamy from his seat by the fire. He put down a financial journal, and then turned to me. “If there’s more good advice flying about than bad, old man, why don’t you take some?” he said. “I could give you plenty of excellent advice at this moment, Honeybun. For instance, I could tell you to play the fool only in your own house; but you wouldn’t thank me. You’d say it was uncalled-for and impertinent; you know you would.”