Short Fiction by H. G. Wells (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

Mr. Ledbetter collapsed panting on the trunk. “Last night,” he gasped, “I was asleep in my little room, and I no more dreamt⁠—”

“There’s no need for you to incriminate yourself,” said the stout gentleman, looking at the lock of the revolver. He began to hum. Mr. Ledbetter made to speak, and thought better of it.

There presently came the sound of a bell, and Mr. Ledbetter was taken to the back door and instructed to open it. A fair-haired man in yachting costume entered. At the sight of Mr. Ledbetter he started violently and clapped his hand behind him. Then he saw the stout man. “Bingham!” he cried, “who’s this?”

“Only a little philanthropic do of mine⁠—burglar I’m trying to reform. Caught him under my bed just now. He’s all right. He’s a frightful ass. He’ll be useful to carry some of our things.”

The newcomer seemed inclined to resent Mr. Ledbetter’s presence at first, but the stout man reassured him.

“He’s quite alone. There’s not a gang in the world would own him. No!⁠—don’t start talking, for goodness’ sake.”

They went out into the darkness of the garden with the trunk still bowing Mr. Ledbetter’s shoulders. The man in the yachting costume walked in front with the Gladstone bag and a pistol; then came Mr. Ledbetter like Atlas; Mr. Bingham followed with the hatbox, coat, and revolver as before. The house was one of those that have their gardens right up to the cliff. At the cliff was a steep wooden stairway, descending to a bathing tent dimly visible on the beach. Below was a boat pulled up, and a silent little man with a black face stood beside it. “A few moments’ explanation,” said Mr. Ledbetter; “I can assure you⁠—” Somebody kicked him, and he said no more.

They made him wade to the boat, carrying the trunk, they pulled him aboard by the shoulders and hair, they called him no better name than “scoundrel” and “burglar” all that night. But they spoke in undertones so that the general public was happily unaware of his ignominy. They hauled him aboard a yacht manned by strange, unsympathetic Orientals, and partly they thrust him and partly he fell down a gangway into a noisome, dark place, where he was to remain many days⁠—how many he does not know, because he lost count among other things when he was seasick. They fed him on biscuits and incomprehensible words; they gave him water to drink mixed with unwished-for rum. And there were cockroaches where they put him, night and day there were cockroaches, and in the nighttime there were rats. The Orientals emptied his pockets and took his watch⁠—but Mr. Bingham, being appealed to, took that himself. And five or six times the five Lascars⁠—if they were Lascars⁠—and the Chinaman and the negro who constituted the crew, fished him out and took him aft to Bingham and his friend to play cribbage and euchre and three-anded whist, and to listen to their stories and boastings in an interested manner.

Then these principals would talk to him as men talk to those who have lived a life of crime. Explanations they would never permit, though they made it abundantly clear to him that he was the rummiest burglar they had ever set eyes on. They said as much again and again. The fair man was of a taciturn disposition and irascible at play; but Mr. Bingham, now that the evident anxiety of his departure from England was assuaged, displayed a vein of genial philosophy. He enlarged upon the mystery of space and time, and quoted Kant and Hegel⁠—or, at least, he said he did. Several times Mr. Ledbetter got as far as: “My position under your bed, you know⁠—,” but then he always had to cut, or pass the whisky, or do some such intervening thing. After his third failure, the fair man got quite to look for this opening, and whenever Mr. Ledbetter began after that, he would roar with laughter and hit him violently on the back. “Same old start, same old story; good old burglar!” the fair-haired man would say.

So Mr. Ledbetter suffered for many days, twenty perhaps; and one evening he was taken, together with some tinned provisions, over the side and put ashore on a rocky little island with a spring. Mr. Bingham came in the boat with him, giving him good advice all the way, and waving his last attempts at an explanation aside.

“I am really not a burglar,” said Mr. Ledbetter.

“You never will be,” said Mr. Bingham. “You’ll never make a burglar. I’m glad you are beginning to see it. In choosing a profession a man must study his temperament. If you don’t, sooner or later you will fail. Compare myself, for example. All my life I have been in banks⁠—I have got on in banks. I have even been a bank manager. But was I happy? No. Why wasn’t I happy? Because it did not suit my temperament. I am too adventurous⁠—too versatile. Practically I have thrown it over. I do not suppose I shall ever manage a bank again. They would be glad to get me, no doubt; but I have learnt the lesson of my temperament⁠—at last⁠ ⁠… No! I shall never manage a bank again.

“Now, your temperament unfits you for crime⁠—just as mine unfits me for respectability. I know you better than I did, and now I do not even recommend forgery. Go back to respectable courses, my man. Your lay is the philanthropic lay⁠—that is your lay. With that voice⁠—the Association for the Promotion of Snivelling among the Young⁠—something in that line. You think it over.

“The island we are approaching has no name apparently⁠—at least, there is none on the chart. You might think out a name for it while you are there⁠—while you are thinking about all these things. It has quite drinkable water, I understand. It is one of the Grenadines⁠—one of the Windward Islands. Yonder, dim and blue, are others of the Grenadines. There are quantities of Grenadines, but the