baltazar had lived on the moor in peace and comfort for nearly a year when he received his first unsolicited communication from the outside world, in the shape of a long, cheap envelope, headed “on his majesty’s service,” and containing income tax assessment forms. for a moment he wondered how the representatives of his majesty had managed to ferret him out in his retreat.
“it’s a vile country,” said he to quong ho, who had handed him the letter on returning from his weekly visit to the town. “it’s a pettifogging, police-ridden land, where a man, if he so chooses, can’t bury himself decently. i’m sure the king is not aware of this unwarranted interference with the liberty of one of the most self-effacing of his subjects.”
“my mind was in half,” replied quong ho, “to destroy the missive which i conjectured would cause you annoyance.”
“it’s a good thing you didn’t. the king is an amiable gentleman, but the high mandarins from whom this proceeds are not to be trifled with.” he glanced through the papers. “it is well,” said he, with a sigh of relief. “the high mandarins around the throne are as yet ignorant of my whereabouts; but if i refused to obey this invitation, they would soon learn it. it is a pestilential minor official in the vicinity who for the sake of money—it’s his disgusting mode of livelihood—has violated my solitude.”
“in the new china,” said quong ho, “we hope to do away with the bureaucracy, which is a parasite on civilization.”
“you won’t do it,” said baltazar. “in the new jerusalem—by which we mean the kingdom of heaven—there is a recording angel, and you may bet your boots he has got his staff of officials who write minutes and fill up forms all eternity long.”
“perfection,” remarked quong ho, “is to be found neither in this world nor the next, but only in that harmonious principle of the soul which is termed li in the confucian philosophy.”
“quong ho,” said baltazar in chinese, “your wisdom befits rather the honourable white beard of the teacher than the smooth-shaven chin of the pupil of five-and-twenty.”
quong ho bowed respectfully at the compliment and withdrew.
“confound the income tax!” said baltazar, looking through the papers. he had completely forgotten his liability. the sudden reminder vexed him. of course he must pay; but his income being exclusively derived from investments, all of which were taxed at the source before the dividend warrants were paid automatically into his account at his bankers’, why should he be worried? he resented the intrusion on his privacy.
a week later quong ho posted the form in the ironically provided, penny-saving official envelope, and baltazar dismissed the incident from his mind.
when some time afterwards his assessment paper arrived, it caused him some astonishment. he cast his memory back twenty years. in 1896 the income tax, if he remembered rightly, was inconsiderable, some sixpence in the pound. now it was half a crown. he filled up the form, an easy task, thinking less than ever of the social condition of modern england; such high direct taxation could only mean the desperate financial straits of a decadent country. well, as far as he was concerned, the loss of one-eighth of his income did not matter. the initial expenses of his installation at spendale farm over, he scarcely spent a third of it.
the next disturbing document that found its way to spendale farm contained a searching series of questions, headed “national registration.”
“i am ceasing to regard england as a fit place to live in,” said he, with some petulance. “this is mandarinism run riot.”
a few weeks afterwards he received a neat little card folded in two, on the outside of which was printed a vile semblance of the royal coat of arms and “national registration act, 1915,” and inside a certificate of the registration of (a) john baltazar, (b) philosophical investigator—for as such had he irritably described himself—(c) of spendale farm, water-end. there was a space for the signature of holder, and below it in great capitals “god save the king.” on the back were directions as to change of address.
“god knows what’s coming over the country,” said he. “it appears that a free-born englishman has got to carry about his police papers, as people have to do in disgusting countries like germany and russia. what about you, quong ho? have you got a pretty little document like this?”
“i am registered as an alien,” replied quong ho.
“it seems to me,” said baltazar, “that when i used to gas to you about our free british institutions i was nothing but an ignorant liar.”
“by no means, sir,” replied quong ho politely. “the keynote of the modern world is change. what was true of material things yesterday is a lie to-day.”
“how did you discover that?”
“i assume the little town of water-end to be but a microcosm of great britain.”
“why,” laughed baltazar, “what signs of change do you see there?”
quong ho remained for a moment silent, and his face assumed its oriental impassivity. if he reported to his master the astounding events that were taking place, even at water-end, whose quiet high street was a-bustle with newly fledged soldiery from the moorland camp three miles on the further side, he would not only risk the dissolution of the establishment, but would be guilty of filial disobedience, which was impiety. and the european war, after all, how could it concern him, li quong ho? perhaps, too, his master, foreseeing the tempest, particularly desired to take shelter and hear nothing at all about it. he was fortunate enough, however, to find a perfectly true reply to baltazar’s question. he smiled in some relief; for an intellectual chinaman, trained in the lofty morality of the chinese classics, does not willingly lie.
“it is a woman and not a man who now delivers the letters in water-end.”
baltazar continued to laugh: “they’ll be driving the motor-cars soon.”
“i’ve seen them doing it,” said quong ho.
“i’m not surprised,” said his master. “they were tending that way a year ago. these new women are out for the devirilization of man. perhaps by this time they’re in parliament, passing firework legislation and playing the devil with all our laws and customs. you haven’t yet heard, by any chance, whether the occupation of monthly nursing is confined exclusively to the male sex?”
“the enactment, if such there be,” replied quong ho solemnly, “is not, to my knowledge, in force in this remote locality.”
“let us thank the gods, quong ho,” said baltazar, “that we’re out of this feminist hurly-burly. the little i saw of the movement was antipathetic to my philosophy of life. a society in which women regard the bearing of children as a physical accident of no account, and deny the responsibilities which such an event entails, must be doomed to decay, or, at the best, to bitter disillusionment. the more i hear of contemporary england the less i like it. it seems to be woman-ridden; curiously enough by two camps in apparent opposition, but in reality waging joint warfare on man. the world has never yet beheld such a sex campaign. one section demands luxury beyond the dreams of byzantium at its rottenest, and the other claims supreme political power.”
“it is well, sir,” said quong ho, “that you repudiated the imbecile suggestion of the house agent to the effect that you should employ a woman housekeeper of mature age to superintend this establishment.”
“it is lucky for you, quong ho, that i did,” grinned baltazar. “she would have made you sit up.”
quong ho, with clasped hands and lowered head, respectfully asserted himself. “if i do not sit up sufficiently for your satisfaction, sir, it is for you to reprimand me.”
“i only spoke in jest, quong ho,” said baltazar. “our western humour is rather subtle.”
“i will make a note of it,” replied quong ho.
“by such notation and accumulation of detail one gathers knowledge,” said baltazar. “by co-ordination one acquires wisdom. continue on this, the only path of philosophy, and your old age will be blessed. in the meantime, please keep your observations of changes at water-end to yourself.”
“obedience to your honourable commands, my master,” replied quong ho, in chinese, “is the sacred duty of this entirely inconsiderable person. but may one so inferior as myself humbly remind your illustrious greatness that it was you who originally propounded to me a question which i was bound to answer.”
“the fact that i did so,” replied baltazar, “you may note as an instance of the human fallibility of the sublimest minds. fear not but that i will profit by your lesson.”
he waved a dismissing hand. quong ho bowed with the perfect ceremonial of pupil taking leave of master and retired. baltazar threw himself into his arm-chair and laughed aloud.
“you’re a joy, quong ho. a perfect joy. a museum specimen of a joy.”
so while baltazar delighted in the unhumorous literalness of the chinaman, it never occurred to him that he was the dupe of the unhumorous literalness of the chinaman’s fidelity; that while he was inveighing against speculative phenomena of an ill-understood movement, the trumpet of war had transformed that movement into an apotheosis of feminine effort of which quong ho, keenly intellectual, was perfectly well aware; and that it was only by the pious grace of his pupil and servant that he lived a day in his fool’s paradise.
when quong ho, a week afterwards, brought him his meagre mail, he angrily crushed in his fist and threw aside the enclosure of the first envelope which he had opened.
“i’m hanged if this isn’t a begging circular! it’s infernal impudence! it’s an intolerable outrage on one’s personal liberty. here, quong ho!”—he swept the remainder of the mail into the chinaman’s hand. “don’t let me be worried with any more letters. i’ve come down here to be quiet and not to be badgered. if there are bills to pay, make out the cheques and i’ll sign them. if there are circulars, throw them away. about anything else use your discretion.”
“i will exactly execute your orders,” replied quong ho.
thus baltazar finally severed relations between himself and the outside world. quong ho acted the perfect private secretary. the only letters presented to his master for perusal were rare business communications from booksellers instructed to purchase some out-of-the-way and possibly expensive book. circular letters, containing appeals for subscriptions, which poured in, as soon as baltazar’s name eventually found its way on the address-lists of the neighbourhood, quong ho conscientiously destroyed. using his discretion, he withheld letters from the bank inviting investments in war loans. such, in his opinion, were further intrusions on the sacred privacy of his master. and thus the weeks and months passed by; and quong ho, in touch with even such an outpost of civilization as the tiny moorland town and bringing to that contact the most highly trained incuriosity, could not avoid gathering the current tidings of the vast world conflict; but, faithful to his commands, he said never a word to baltazar, gave never a hint of the stupendous convulsion in which the world was involved. and while his master, serene doctrinaire, discoursed on the political science of the nineties, now being blown to smithereens by german guns, he maintained the reverential attitude of the disciple, drinking in as gospel truth the wisdom of his inspired teacher.
one evening, when baltazar had praised the clear solution of certain problems which he had set in differential equations, and prophesied a glorious career for the most brilliant mathematician china had ever produced, quong ho, after gratefully acknowledging the encomium, said:
“if you will forgive my indiscretion, i should like to ask a question. why is it, sir, that you, who take such great interest in the future—for example, my inconsiderable and negligible prospects, and the benefits that will accrue to humanity on the publication of the thought-shaking results of your own profound researches,—should be so indifferent to the present condition of the world?”
“for the simple reason, my good fellow,” replied baltazar, “that, from what i have observed, the present condition of mankind—from china to peru, as your newly found friend dr. johnson says—is putrescent. the best way in which we can serve mankind is to do what we’re doing now—to provide for the intellectual development of the future generation.”
“the proposition is unanswerable,” said quong ho. “but suppose, sir, for the sake of argument, that a philosophic observation of the civilized world as it is should result in the conclusion that, in the english idiom, it is proceeding fast to the devils—what is the duty of the man of high morality?”
“to let it go slap-dash,” said baltazar. “the faster and surer, the better. for then the sooner will the eternal rhythm, the eternal principle of balance, assert itself. when a society is rushing down to gadarene suicide——”
“i beg your pardon, sir,” interrupted the alert quong ho. “gad—i do not understand the word.”
“read the gospel according to st. mark to-morrow. you’ve heard of st. mark?”
“you might as well ask me, sir, if i had heard of confucius or homer, or the immortal todhunter of my childhood.”
baltazar rubbed his brown thatch and turned his luminous grey eyes on his disciple.
“the immensity of your purview, quong ho, is only equalled by your lightning perception of landmarks. anyhow, read st. mark over again, and tell me your opinion of the swine of gadara. for the moment, i’d have you know that you’ve interrupted my argument. i was saying that if everything’s going to the devil—that’s the correct idiom—not proceeding to devils——”
“may i make a note of it?” said quong ho, scribbling the phrase across his mathematical manuscript.
baltazar rose from his chair by the long deal table and relit his pipe over the chimney of a lamp.
“you’ve put me out. what the blazes were we talking about?”
“the present world condition,” replied quong ho.
“then i assert,” said baltazar, “that the present state of the world is rotten. it’s no place for intellectual reformers like you and me. what are the words of confucius known to every schoolboy? ‘with sincerity and truth unite a desire for self-culture. lay down your life rather than quit the path of virtue. enter not a state which is tottering to its fall. when law obtains in the empire let yourself be seen: when lawlessness reigns, retire into obscurity.’?”
“but supposing,” persisted quong ho, “the state of the devil-driven world is of vital interest?”
“it can be of vital interest only to those hurtling down to destruction. to us, who have retired into the obscure aloofness recommended by the great philosopher, it can be of no possible concern.”
“it is well,” said quong ho.
“i know it is,” remarked baltazar, with a yawn. “another night let us have a slightly more intelligent conversation.”
quong ho retired, his conscience finally set at rest. after all, was not his master right? what could he do of any use in the world rudely at war? was he not serving the truest interests of humanity by retiring at this juncture and devoting the harvest of his great learning to a future generation?
“soldiers,” said quong ho the next day, looking into the unspeculative topaz eyes of the goat which he had been milking, “are as numerous as the sands of the desert, and politicians as the mosquitoes in a swamp; they are swept away and the world misses them not; but philosophers are rare, and the loss of one of them is a supreme world calamity.”
“baa-a-a!” said the goat.
“i perceive that you too have wisdom,” said quong ho. “you appreciate the privilege of living under the same roof as the illustrious baltazar.”
he burst into an unaccustomed laugh. conversation with a goat appealed to his prim sense of humour. but all the same, he expressed his own deeply-rooted conviction. to the keen-brained young chinaman, baltazar appeared as a man of stupendous intellectual force. his knowledge of the abstract sciences of the western world would have commanded his respect; but his vast chinese erudition, acknowledged with admiration by mandarins and scholars and other great ones of china, gave quong ho cause for a veneration reaching almost to idolatry.
also baltazar, for all his patriarchal years, earned his pupil’s respect as a man of marvellous muscle and endurance. during the winter, when the inclemency of the weather forbade agricultural pursuits—and on that moorland waste the weather abandoned itself to every capricious devildom within meteorological possibilities—baltazar, having ordered a set of gloves from london, gave boxing lessons to his disciple. at first quong ho was shocked. how could so contemptible a person as he ever make a pretence of smiting the highly honourable face of his master? baltazar bade him try. he would give him an hour’s extra private tuition for every hit. and quong ho, encouraged by so splendid a prize, tried, at first diffidently, then earnestly, then zealously, then desperately, then bald-headedly, but never a wild blow could pass the easy guard of his smiling master.
“you see, quong ho, it’s a science,” said baltazar. “now i’m going to hit you.” and he feinted and struck out with his left and sent his disciple swinging across the room. “it is also a game,” he added, holding up his hand, “because what i have just done did not hurt you in the least.”
quong ho rubbed his jaw. “it was like the kiss of a butterfly,” said he.
“here endeth the first lesson,” said baltazar. “the english etiquette now requires that we should shake hands.”
when they had gone through the formality baltazar continued:
“you of all non-english people oughtn’t to be astonished. did not the same ceremony exist in your country over two thousand years ago? is it not referred to in the analects?”
“sir,” said the breathless and perspiring quong ho, “i have unworthily forgotten.”
“did not the master say: ‘the true gentleman is never contentious. if a spirit of rivalry is anywhere unavoidable, it is at a shooting-match. yet even here he courteously salutes his opponents before taking up his position’—we ought to have shaken hands before starting, but we’ll do it next time—‘and again when, having lost, he retires to drink the forfeit-cup’—your forfeit-cup being the loss of the extra hours of tuition. ‘so that even when competing, he remains a true gentleman.’?”
“i remember now,” said quong ho.
“i’m glad you do,” replied baltazar. “that is the lofty spirit in which we shall continue this exceedingly health-giving science and pastime.”
and they continued. the young chinaman, lithe, hard, physically perfect, little more than half the age of his tutor, devoted himself, with his chinese assiduity, to the mastery of the fascinating art, and succeeded eventually in giving baltazar most interesting encounters; he realized that fierce blows planted on venerable features were taken, nay applauded, in the spirit of the confucian gentleman; he also accepted in the same gentlemanly way the hammering that he invariably received. it was after some months of this training, when he was able to discount merely superior science, that he bowed down before baltazar not only as before an intellect, but as before a marvellous physical man.
there came a truce, however—the following winter—when baltazar, wise in his elderly generation, foresaw the inevitable supremacy of youth, and ordered new toys from london—foils, masks and fencing jackets. the gloves mouldered in a broken-down potting-shed, and quong ho again started, as a tyro, to learn a new athletic accomplishment. thus in his disciple’s sound body baltazar contrived to maintain a sound and humble mind. he knew that he was held in deep respect by quong ho. but it never occurred to his careless mind that quong ho regarded him as a kind of god. he accepted the homage as a matter of course.
in these idyllic conditions john baltazar accounted himself serenely happy. his scholarly solitude was undisturbed by the windy ways of men or the windy ways of moorland nature. the former spent themselves before reaching him; at the latter he snapped his fingers. what to him was the seasons’ difference? so absorbed was he in his work, so circumscribed in his walled enclosure beyond which he seldom set foot, that he barely even noticed the hourly change on the sensitive face of the moor. and season followed season, and the piles of manuscript, exquisitely corrected for the printer, grew in height, and quong ho assimilated higher mathematics as though it were rice; and everything was for the best in the best of all possible little intellectual worlds.
