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

wasn’t no inscription; why should there be? but down he goes to read, and his interpreter, being of course as superstitious as any of them, more so by reason of his seeing missionary close to, took it for an act of worship and plumped down like a shot. All my people gave a howl of triumph, and there wasn’t any more business to be done in my village after that journey, not by the likes of him.

“But, of course, I was a fool to choke him off like that. If I’d had any sense I should have told him straight away of the treasure and taken him into Co. I’ve no doubt he’d have come into Co. A child, with a few hours to think it over, could have seen the connection between my diving dress and the loss of the Ocean Pioneer. A week after he left I went out one morning and saw the Motherhood, the salver’s ship from Starr Race, towing up the channel and sounding. The whole blessed game was up, and all my trouble thrown away. Gummy! How wild I felt! And guying it in that stinking silly dress! Four months!”

The sunburnt man’s story degenerated again. “Think of it,” he said, when he emerged to linguistic purity once more. “Forty thousand pounds’ worth of gold.”

“Did the little missionary come back?” I asked.

“Oh yes! bless him! And he pledged his reputation there was a man inside the god, and started out to see as much with tremendous ceremony. But wasn’t⁠—he got sold again. I always did hate scenes and explanations, and long before he came I was out of it all⁠—going home to Banya along the coast, hiding in bushes by day, and thieving food from the villages by night. Only weapon, a spear. No clothes, no money. Nothing. My face, my fortune, as the saying is. And just a squeak of eight thousand pounds of gold⁠—fifth share. But the natives cut up rusty, thank goodness, because they thought it was him had driven their luck away.”

Mr. Brisher’s Treasure

“You can’t be too careful who you marry,” said Mr. Brisher, and pulled thoughtfully with a fat-wristed hand at the lank moustache that hides his want of chin.

“That’s why⁠—” I ventured.

“Yes,” said Mr. Brisher, with a solemn light in his bleary, blue-grey eyes, moving his head expressively and breathing alcohol intimately at me. “There’s lots as ’ave ’ad a try at me⁠—many as I could name in this town⁠—but none ’ave done it⁠—none.”

I surveyed the flushed countenance, the equatorial expansion, the masterly carelessness of his attire, and heaved a sigh to think that by reason of the unworthiness of women he must needs be the last of his race.

“I was a smart young chap when I was younger,” said Mr. Brisher. “I ’ad my work cut out. But I was very careful⁠—very. And I got through⁠ ⁠…”

He leant over the taproom table and thought visibly on the subject of my trustworthiness. I was relieved at last by his confidence.

“I was engaged once,” he said at last, with a reminiscent eye on the shuv-a’penny board.

“So near as that?”

He looked at me. “So near as that. Fact is⁠—” He looked about him, brought his face close to mine, lowered his voice, and fenced off an unsympathetic world with a grimy hand. “If she ain’t dead or married to someone else or anything⁠—I’m engaged still. Now.” He confirmed this statement with nods and facial contortions. “Still,” he said, ending the pantomime, and broke into a reckless smile at my surprise. “Me!”

“Run away,” he explained further, with coruscating eyebrows. “Come ’ome.

“That ain’t all.

“You’d ’ardly believe it,” he said, “but I found a treasure. Found a regular treasure.”

I fancied this was irony, and did not, perhaps, greet it with proper surprise. “Yes,” he said, “I found a treasure. And come ’ome. I tell you I could surprise you with things that has happened to me.” And for some time he was content to repeat that he had found a treasure⁠—and left it.

I made no vulgar clamour for a story, but I became attentive to Mr. Brisher’s bodily needs, and presently I led him back to the deserted lady.

“She was a nice girl,” he said⁠—a little sadly, I thought. “And respectable.”

He raised his eyebrows and tightened his mouth to express extreme respectability⁠—beyond the likes of us elderly men.

“It was a long way from ’ere. Essex, in fact. Near Colchester. It was when I was up in London⁠—in the buildin’ trade. I was a smart young chap then, I can tell you. Slim. ’Ad best clo’es ’s good as anybody. ’At⁠—silk ’at, mind you.” Mr. Brisher’s hand shot above his head towards the infinite to indicate it silk hat of the highest. “Umbrella⁠—nice umbrella with a ’orn ’andle. Savin’s. Very careful I was⁠ ⁠…”

He was pensive for a little while, thinking, as we must all come to think sooner or later, of the vanished brightness of youth. But he refrained, as one may do in taprooms, from the obvious moral.

“I got to know ’er through a chap what was engaged to ’er sister. She was stopping in London for a bit with an aunt that ’ad a ’am an’ beef shop. This aunt was very particular⁠—they was all very particular people, all ’er people was⁠—and wouldn’t let ’er sister go out with this feller except ’er other sister, my girl that is, went with them. So ’e brought me into it, sort of to ease the crowding. We used to go walks in Battersea Park of a Sunday afternoon. Me in my topper, and ’im in ’is; and the girl’s⁠—well⁠—stylish. There wasn’t many in Battersea Park ’ad the larf of us. She wasn’t what you’d call pretty, but a nicer girl I never met. I liked ’er from the start, and, well⁠—though I say it who shouldn’t⁠—she liked me. You know ’ow it is, I dessay?”

I pretended I did.

“And when this chap married ’er sister⁠—’im and me was great friends⁠—what