and inaction the Continent sped its wealth and industry. Now and again the clumps of
people raised the cheer of the gratefully oppressed. Their sympathy, however, was for
the blue cars - the cars of their friends, the French.
The French, moreover, were virtual victors. Their team had finished solidly; they had
been placed second and third and the driver of the winning German car was reported a
Belgian. Each blue car, therefore, received a double measure of welcome as it topped
the crest of the hill, and each cheer of welcome was acknowledged with smiles and
nods by those in the car. In one of these trimly built cars was a party of four young
men whose spirits seemed to be at present well above the level of successful
Gallicism: in fact, these four young men were almost hilarious. They were Charles
Ségouin, the owner of the car; André Rivière, a young electrician of Canadian birth; a
huge Hungarian named Villona and a neatly groomed young man named Doyle.
Ségouin was in good humour because he had unexpectedly received some orders in
advance (he was about to start a motor establishment in Paris) and Rivière was in
good humour because he was to be appointed manager of the establishment; these two
young men (who were cousins) were also in good humour because of the success of
the French cars. Villona was in good humour because he had had a very satisfactory
luncheon; and, besides, he was an optimist by nature. The fourth member of the party,
however, was too excited to be genuinely happy.
He was about twenty-six years of age, with a soft, light-brown moustache and rather
innocent-looking grey eyes. His father, who had begun life as an advanced
Nationalist, had modified his views early. He had made his money as a butcher in
Kingstown, and by opening shops in Dublin and in the suburbs he had made his
money many times over. He had also been fortunate enough to secure some of the
police contracts and in the end he had become rich enough to be alluded to in the
Dublin newspapers as a merchant prince. He had sent his son to England to be
educated in a big Catholic college and had afterwards sent him to Dublin University
to study law. Jimmy did not study very earnestly and took to bad courses for a while.
He had money and he was popular; and he divided his time curiously between
musical and motoring circles. Then he had been sent for a term to Cambridge to see a
little life. His father, remonstrative, but covertly proud of the excess, had paid his bills
and brought him home. It was at Cambridge that he had met Ségouin. They were not
much more than acquaintances as yet, but Jimmy found great pleasure in the society
of one who had seen so much of the world and was reputed to own some of the
biggest hotels in France. Such a person (as his father agreed) was well worth
knowing, even if he had not been the charming companion he was. Villona was
entertaining also - a brilliant pianist - but, unfortunately, very poor.
The car ran on merrily with its cargo of hilarious youth. The two cousins sat on the
front seat; Jimmy and his Hungarian friend sat behind. Decidedly Villona was in
excellent spirits; he kept up a deep bass hum of melody for miles of the road. The
Frenchmen flung their laughter and light words over their shoulders, and often Jimmy
had to strain forward to catch the quick phrase. This was not altogether pleasant for
him, as he had nearly always to make a deft guess at the meaning and shout back a
suitable answer in the face of a high wind. Besides, Villona's humming would confuse
everybody; the noise of the car, too.
Rapid motion through space elates one; so does notoriety; so does the possession of
money. These were three good reasons for Jimmy's excitement. He had been seen by
many of his friends that day in the company of these Continentals. At the control
Ségouin had presented him to one of the French competitors and, in answer to his
confused murmur of compliment, the swarthy face of the driver had disclosed a line
of shining white teeth. It was pleasant after that honour to return to the profane world
of spectators amid nudges and significant looks. Then as to money - he really had a
great sum under his control. Ségouin, perhaps, would not think it a great sum, but
Jimmy who, in spite of temporary errors; was at heart the inheritor of solid instincts,
knew well with what difficulty it had been got together. This knowledge had
previously kept his bills within the limits of reasonable recklessness, and if he had
been so conscious of the labour latent in money when there had been question merely
of some freak of the higher intelligence, how much more so now when he was about
to stake the greater part of his substance! It was a serious thing for him.
Of course, the investment was a good one, and Ségouin had managed to give the
impression that it was by a favour of friendship the mite of Irish money was to be
included in the capital of the concern. Jimmy had a respect for his father's shrewdness
in business matters, and in this case it had been his father who had first suggested the
investment; money to be made in the motor business, pots of money. Moreover,
Ségouin had the unmistakable air of wealth. Jimmy set out to translate into days' work
that lordly car in which he sat. How smoothly it ran! In what style they had come
careering along the country roads! The journey laid a magical finger on the genuine
pulse of life and gallantly the machinery of human nerves strove to answer the
bounding courses of the swift blue animal.
They drove down Dame Street. The street was busy with unusual traffic, loud with the
horns of motorists and the gongs of impatient tram-drivers. Near the Bank Ségouin
drew up and Jimmy and his friend alighted. A little knot of people collected on the
footpath to pay homage to the snorting motor. The party was to dine together that
evening in Ségouin's hotel and, meanwhile, Jimmy and his friend, who was staying
with him, were to go home to dress. The car steered out slowly for Grafton Street
while the two young men pushed their way through the knot of gazers. They walked
northward with a curious feeling of disappointment in the exercise, while the city
hung its pale globes of light above them in a haze of summer evening.
In Jimmy's house this dinner had been pronounced an occasion. A certain pride
mingled with his parents' trepidation, a certain eagerness, also, to play fast and loose,
for the names of great foreign cities have at least this virtue. Jimmy, too, looked very
well when he was dressed, and as he stood in the hall, giving a last equation to the
bows of his dress tie, his father may have felt even commercially satisfied at having
secured for his son qualities often unpurchasable. His father, therefore, was unusually
friendly with Villona, and his manner expressed a real respect for foreign
accomplishments; but this subtlety of his host was probably lost upon the Hungarian,
who was beginning to have a sharp desire for his dinner.
The dinner was excellent, exquisite. Ségouin, Jimmy decided, had a very refined taste.
The party was increased by a young Englishman named Routh whom Jimmy had seen
with Ségouin at Cambridge. The young men supped in a snug room lit by electric
candle lamps. They talked volubly and with little reserve. Jimmy, whose imagination
was kindling, conceived the lively youth of the Frenchmen twined elegantly upon the
firm framework of the Englishman's manner. A graceful image of his, he thought, and
a just one. He admired the dexterity with which their host directed the conversation.
The five young men had various tastes and their tongues had been loosened. Villona,
with immense respect, began to discover to the mildly surprised Englishman the
beauties of the English madrigal, deploring the loss of old instruments. Rivière, not
wholly ingenuously, undertook to explain to Jimmy the triumph of the French
mechanicians. The resonant voice of the Hungarian was about to prevail in ridicule of
the spurious lutes of the romantic painters when Ségouin shepherded his party into
politics. Here was congenial ground for all. Jimmy, under generous influences, felt
the buried zeal of his father wake to life within him: he aroused the torpid Routh at
last. The room grew doubly hot and Ségouin's task grew harder each moment: there
was even danger of personal spite. The alert host at an opportunity lifted his glass to
Humanity, and when the toast had been drunk he threw open a window significantly.
That night the city wore the mask of a capital. The five young men strolled along
Stephen's Green in a faint cloud of aromatic smoke. They talked loudly and gaily and
their cloaks dangled from their shoulders. The people made way for them. At the
corner of Grafton Street a short fat man was putting two handsome ladies on a car in
charge of another fat man. The car drove off and the short fat man caught sight of the
party.
`André.'
`It's Farley!'
A torrent of talk followed. Farley was an American. No one knew very well what the
talk was about. Villona and Rivière were the noisiest, but all the men were excited.
They got up on a car, squeezing themselves together amid much laughter. They drove
by the crowd, blended now into soft colours, to a music of merry bells. They took the
train at Westland Row and in a few seconds, as it seemed to Jimmy, they were
walking out of Kingstown Station. The ticket-collector saluted Jimmy; he was an old
man:
`Fine night, sir!'
It was a serene summer night; the harbour lay like a darkened mirror at their feet.
They proceeded towards it with linked arms, singing Cadet Roussel in chorus,
stamping their feet at every:
`Ho! Ho! Hohé, vraiment!'
They got into a rowboat at the slip and made out for the American's yacht. There was
to be supper, music, cards. Villona said with conviction:
`It is delightful!'
There was a yacht piano in the cabin. Villona played a waltz for Farley and Rivière,
Farley acting as cavalier and Rivière as lady. Then an impromptu square dance, the
men devising original figures. What merriment! Jimmy took his part with a will; this
was seeing life, at least. Then Farley got out of breath and cried `Stop!' A man
brought in a light supper, and the young men sat down to it for form's sake. They
drank, however: it was Bohemian. They drank Ireland, England, France, Hungary, the
United States of America. Jimmy made a speech, a long speech, Villona saying
`Hear! hear!' whenever there was a pause. There was a great clapping of hands when
he sat down. It must have been a good speech. Farley clapped him on the back and
laughed loudly. What jovial fellows! What good company they were!
Cards! cards! The table was cleared. Villona returned quietly to his piano and played
voluntaries for them. The other men played game after game, flinging themselves
boldly into the adventure. They drank the health of the Queen of Hearts and of the
Queen of Diamonds. Jimmy felt obscurely the lack of an audience: the wit was
flashing. Play ran very high and paper began to pass. Jimmy did not know exactly
who was winning, but he knew that he was losing. But it was his own fault, for he
frequently mistook his cards and the other men had to calculate his IOUs for him.
They were devils of fellows, but he wished they would stop: it was getting late.
Someone gave the toast of the yacht The Belle of Newport, and then someone
proposed one great game for a finish.
The piano had stopped; Villona must have gone up on deck. It was a terrible game.
They stopped just before the end of it to drink for luck. Jimmy understood that the
game lay between Routh and Ségouin. What excitement! Jimmy was excited too; he
would lose, of course. How much had he written away? The men rose to their feet to
play the last tricks, talking and gesticulating. Routh won. The cabin shook with the
young men's cheering and the cards were bundled together. They began then to gather
in what they had won. Farley and Jimmy were the heaviest losers.
He knew that he would regret it in the morning, but at present he was glad of the rest,
glad of the dark stupor that would cover up his folly. He leaned his elbows on the
table and rested his head between his hands, counting the beats of his temples. The
cabin door opened and he saw the Hungarian standing in a shaft of grey light:
`Daybreak, gentlemen!'
Two Gallants
The grey warm evening of August had descended upon the city, and a mild warm air,
a memory of summer, circulated in the streets. The streets, shuttered for the repose of
Sunday, swarmed with a gaily coloured crowd. Like illumined pearls the lamps shone
from the summits of their tall poles upon the living texture below, which, changing
shape and hue unceasingly, sent up into the warm grey evening air an unchanging,
unceasing murmur.
Two young men came down the hill of Rutland Square. One of them was just
bringing a long monologue to a close. The other, who walked on the verge of the path
and was at times obliged to step on to the road, owing to his companion's rudeness,
wore an amused, listening face. He was squat and ruddy. A yachting cap was shoved
far back from his forehead, and the narrative to which he listened made constant
waves of expression break forth over his face from the corners of his nose and eyes
and mouth. Little jets of wheezing laughter followed one another out of his convulsed
body. His eyes, twinkling with cunning enjoyment, glanced at every moment towards
his companion's face. Once or twice he rearranged the light waterproof which he had
slung over one shoulder in toreador fashion. His breeches, his white rubber shoes, and
his jauntily slung waterproof expressed youth. But his figure fell into rotundity at the
waist, his hair was scant and grey, and his face, when the waves of expression had
passed over it, had a ravaged look.
When he was quite sure that the narrative had ended he laughed noiselessly for fully
half a minute. Then he said:
`Well!... That takes the biscuit!'
His voice seemed winnowed of vigour; and to enforce his words he added with
humour:
`That takes the solitary, unique, and, if I may so call it, recherché biscuit!'
