you naturally assume that before the letter could reach him alpha had been mortally struck down by apoplexy, double pneumonia, bullet, automobile, or some such enemy of joy, and that all the dreadful things which i had foreseen might happen did in fact happen, thus proving once more what a very wise friend i was, and filling me with justifiable pride in my grief. but it was not so. alpha was not struck down, nor did his agreeable house topple over the metaphorical precipice. according to poetical justice he ought to have been struck down, just to serve him right, and as a warning to others—only he was not. not merely the wicked, but the improvident and the negligent, often flourish like the green bay tree, and they keep on flourishing, and setting wisdom and righteousness at defiance in the most successful manner. which, indeed, makes the life of a philosopher and sagacious adviser extremely difficult and ungrateful.
alpha never received my letter because i never sent it. there are letters which one writes, not to send, but to ease one’s mind. this letter was one of them. it would not have been proper to dispatch such a letter. moreover, in the duties of friendship, as distinguished from the pleasures of friendship, speech is better, bolder, surer than writing. when two friends within hailing distance of each other get to exchanging epistles in order to settle a serious difference of opinion, the peril to their friendship is indeed grave; and the peril is intensified when one of them has adopted a superior moral attitude—as i had. the letters grow longer and longer, ruder and ruder, and the probability of the friendship surviving grows ever rapidly less and less. it is—usually, though not always—a mean act to write what you have not the pluck to say.
so i just kept the letter as a specimen of what i could do—if i chose—in the high role of candid friend.
i said to myself that i would take the first favourable occasion to hint to mr. alpha how profoundly, etc., etc.
the occasion arrived sooner than i had feared. alpha had an illness. it was not alarming, and yet it was sufficiently formidable. it began with colitis, and ended with appendicitis and an operation. soon after alpha had risen from his bed and was cheerfully but somewhat feebly about again i met him at a club. he was sitting in an arm-chair in one of the huge bay-windows of the club, and gazing with bright interest upon the varied spectacle of the street. the occasion was almost ideal. i took the other arm-chair in the semicircle of the window. i saw at once by his careless demeanour that his illness had taught him nothing, and i determined with all my notorious tact and persuasiveness to point a moral for him.
and just as i was clearing my throat to begin he exclaimed, with a jerk of the elbow and a benevolently satiric smile:
“see that girl?”
a plainly-dressed young woman carrying a violin-case crossed the street in front of our window.
“i see her,” said i. “what about her?”
“that’s omega’s second daughter.”
“oh, omega,” i murmured. “haven’t seen him for ages. what’s he doing with himself? do you ever meet him nowadays?”
said mr. alpha:
“i happened to dine with him—it was chiefly on business—a couple of days before i fell ill. remarkably strange cove, omega—remarkably strange.”
“why? how? and what’s the matter with the cove’s second daughter, anyway?”
“well,” said alpha, “it’s all of a piece—him and his second daughter and the rest of the family. funny case. it ought to interest you. omega’s got a mania.”
“what mania?”
“not too easy to describe. call it the precaution mania.”
“the precaution mania? what’s that?”
“i’ll tell you.”
and he told me.
