Читать книгу Jorkens Has a Large Whiskey - Edward 18th Baron of Dunsany Plunkett - Страница 5

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Again winter had come to London, and the clock said a quarter past three and night lay over the Billiards Club. At any rate the sun had set behind houses, and a long arm of fog had come reaching down the street and lights were lit in windows; and our own large window was just being hid with its curtains, and cheery lights were shining. Jorkens was there, among nearly a dozen of us; and, lunch over and the fire burning well, it was pre-eminently the occasion for a story. In a hush that came drowsily down on our conversation some of us looked at Jorkens; more than a look seemed hardly needed by the occasion; then we sat quiet and waited for him to begin. Something more, however, seemed to have been needed to brighten his memory and start him: Jorkens never said what, and somehow or other none of us seemed to have thought of it, and we never got a story from him that day. I waited expecting one, for it was the very evening of all the evenings of that November to start Jorkens remembering sunshine and all of us listening eagerly. I did not give up hope of a tale from him, to pass a dark hour away, till he turned and talked to Terbut, and about London. Then I saw we should have no tale of the wilder parts of Africa. “Terbut,” he said, “you know London better than I do ...”

We all looked up, and so began the strangest experience of all the strange things I have been introduced to by Jorkens. And I am glad to relate it, for not only am I able to check its accuracy, but any reader who is able to visit London can check the veracity of it for himself, thus obtaining absolute proof to test one of Jorkens’ exploits.

“You know London better than I do,” said Jorkens. “I wonder which is the further, from Blackfriars Bridge to Westminster Bridge, or ...”

“Yes?” said Terbut, leaning forward, eager to justify his knowledge of London.

“Or from Westminster Bridge to Blackfriars Bridge,” said Jorkens reflectively.

“What?” said Terbut.

And Jorkens repeated it.

“Don’t talk silly nonsense,” said Terbut rudely, as soon as he was sure of what Jorkens was saying.

“I only asked you a question,” said Jorkens.

“It’s a nonsensical one,” said Terbut.

We all saw that Jorkens was trying to catch Terbut somehow, although we didn’t see how. And it was unlike Jorkens to turn on Terbut like that. But I think he had never forgiven a certain remark that Terbut had made about a unicorn; a remark such as a man who has never travelled, and who is a little jealous of one who has, might be expected to make. It is easy to sneer at unicorns. But it is definitely on record that Pope Clement gave the horn of one of these interesting creatures to Francis I of France, and that he commissioned no less an artist than Benvenuto Cellini to have the horn properly mounted. It may perhaps be said that the Pope may have easily made a mistake. But that is mere bigotry.

Well then, Jorkens was asking Terbut which was the further, from Blackfriars Bridge to Westminster Bridge, or from Westminster Bridge to Blackfriars Bridge; and Terbut was telling him that the question was nonsense.

“I was only wondering,” said Jorkens, gazing away to the last thin strip of the fog that the waiter was tidily hiding, as he brought the curtains together.

“Don’t be silly,” said Terbut.

“Don’t let’s argue,” said Jorkens.

“There’s nothing to argue about,” Terbut answered.

“Let’s try it,” said Jorkens.

“Try it?” gasped Terbut.

“Measure it,” Jorkens explained.

And Terbut remained silent, gaping.

“We could do it in a taxi,” said Jorkens. “Watch where his clock ticked, and measure anything that was left over with a tape. Try it each way, and see which was the longer.”

Of course that calm explanation infuriated Terbut, and I saw that it was meant to; I saw, as I think we all saw then, that Jorkens was heading Terbut into a bet. And I think Terbut deserved it, considering the number of times that he has tried to catch Jorkens over things that could never be proved. Here was something that could definitely be proved. But how Jorkens was going to win his bet we could none of us see. And Terbut exploded with: “Waste my money on a taxi to test an absurdity?”

And Jorkens quietly said: “I should say that from Westminster Bridge to Blackfriars Bridge would be the longer.”

“Nonsense,” said Terbut again.

“Ah. You think Blackfriars Bridge to Westminster Bridge,” said Jorkens. “I daresay you may be right.”

“Nonsense” was now becoming a parrot cry with Terbut.

“Equal, you think,” said Jorkens.

“Of course,” spluttered Terbut.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Jorkens, “but let’s bet about it.”

“I shouldn’t bet about anything so absurd,” Terbut answered.

“Ah, I thought I was right,” said Jorkens.

“Thought you were right?” exclaimed Terbut.

“Yes, I thought that Westminster Bridge to Blackfriars Bridge was the further of the two; and when people won’t bet with you they’re generally wrong.”

“Wrong?” said Terbut like a single explosion.

“Well, have a bet then,” insisted Jorkens.

“How much?” asked Terbut.

“A fiver,” Jorkens suggested.

“Right,” said Terbut.

Terbut was angry and had decided to rob Jorkens; but Jorkens merely ordered a whiskey from the waiter, adding: “I’ll pay for it this evening, if you’ll just put it down.”

And so the two men set out into the fog to see which was the further, Blackfriars Bridge to Westminster Bridge, or Westminster Bridge to Blackfriars Bridge, and to measure it chiefly by taxi. They agreed on that method as they went, Jorkens suggesting a second journey in case either party should be dissatisfied, and Terbut refusing this, for fear Jorkens should somehow wriggle out; but Jorkens’ last words as he left were: “Then a second journey over the two distances if you are dissatisfied, but not if I am.”

Terbut considered a moment over even that generous offer, then gruffly agreed, and the two went out of the club. Soppit, a member with a noisy little car that he thinks a great deal of, went too, with the idea of checking the bet by means of his own instrument. The rest of us sat silent. One was used to wonders with Jorkens; but, without for a moment saying that proofs have been needed, we had never sat before with the proof of one of his contentions within almost half an hour of us, and the proximity of it a little awed us all. Also, I, for one, scarcely liked to commit myself with any hasty comment. On the one hand the thing was absurd, on the other Jorkens had a certain air about him that I had come to know so well, and that air seemed almost to prophesy the defeat of Terbut. We were perhaps chary of identifying ourselves with the losing side, merely to champion sanity. And then that present of five pounds, as it appeared to be, to Terbut: that was hardly like Jorkens.

Then a few suggestions were uttered out of the silence. But there was no point in any of them.

Then silence again. And you know what it is after lunch, with fog outside and warmth within, and good comfortable chairs. Very little more was said.

And so time passed, and presently Jorkens and Terbut came back, with Soppit running behind. What had happened, if I can make head or tail of it, seems to have been this: they started at Blackfriars Bridge, which is the nearer one to the club: they stopped their taxi exactly at the edge of the bridge, and got out and paid him. Then they hired him again, as soon as his flag was up, and told him to drive to Westminster Bridge. This he did, and his clock ticked about 90 yards short of it, and they got out and measured that 90 yards with a tape; 91 yards, 2 feet, 2½ inches, to be exact; from the point where the taxi-clock ticked to the edge of Westminster Bridge. Then they paid off their taxi and hired him once again, and drove back to Blackfriars Bridge. And the second journey was unmistakably longer.

There had apparently been an exhibition of temper by Terbut, and of calmness by Jorkens, Jorkens merely saying suavely, “But let’s try again.” While Terbut had argued and blustered. An onlooker would not easily have seen on which side was reason and sanity. And in the end they did try again. And they got the same result.

And then Soppit did the distance with his little car, and corroborates the whole absurd story; and is ready to prove to anyone who doubts it, by a trip in his car, that Westminster Bridge to Blackfriars Bridge is further than from Blackfriars Bridge to Westminster Bridge. He says that the river flows almost in a semicircle there. I never said it didn’t. He says that taxis always keep to their left. We all knew that. He was saying something about the arc of a larger circle. But I interrupted him there, to express what we all felt, that no arcs of circles in the world were going to make the distance from Blackfriars Bridge to Westminster Bridge any shorter than the distance between the same two points going the other way. And I could have proved it too. But just as I was going to speak, Jorkens came in on the side of craziness, of absurdity, the side that I shall always think to be wrong, if only one were able to prove it; and yet he came in with what I have to admit was irrefutable argument, as he wagged his head to where his old opponent was standing dejected and silent.

“Terbut,” he said, “has paid up.”

There was no more one could say.