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Dr. Charles Richmond had spoken of the Rev. John Gurney to Dr. Corrie Richmond as “A funny little fellow”, and Dr. Charles was to think him still funnier before the summer was out, for he had seen Gurney, trousers rolled up, paddling in the sea with a collection of cockney children. Dr. Charles Richmond, being the young physician, was very much upon his dignity, much more so than was his father, and a little self-conscious about his youthful appearance. He had suggested growing a beard, but his mother had negatived it.

“Curious little bloke—that.”

Charles shed some of his fine feathers when he was off duty, and relapsed into the vernacular.

“Who, dear?”

“The little parson. Saw him paddling and sailing boats.”

“Well, why not, Charles?”

“Not very dignified.”

His father was secretly amused. “Maybe, Charles, the most dignified people are those who can forget about—dignity.”

Charles looked carefully across the table at his father. “Pulling legs, pater?”

“I will, if you feel like putting one out to be pulled.”

“Nothing doing.”

But, as it happened, Dr. Charles was a little previous in his opinions, and was sufficiently frank to modify them. Physicians should not be prejudiced, especially in the making of diagnoses. Charles returned from the Old Town one September evening, looking hot and thoughtful. He had been called out upon an emergency case, to discover that a certain person had been there before him.

“Well, Charles, any excitement?”

“I should say so. Tommie Pond on the war-path.”

“Drink, again?”

“Fighting drunk, and knocking his wife about. That was before I arrived. Hit her with a saucepan, and then got into a scrap with Fred Childs. Somehow, I have changed my mind about the little curate chap.”

“What had he to do with it?”

“Quite a lot. Apparently he walked in and stopped the fight, and when I got there Tom was as tame as——”

Charles sought for the simile and it eluded him. The pork chop that he was eating appeared to be somewhat tough, and for some seconds he dealt meditatively with a mouthful.

“Was Mrs. Pond badly hurt?” asked his mother.

“Oh, a scalp wound. Had to sew it up. And Tom sat in a corner, snivelling. The padre had reduced him to tears.”

“Probably alcoholic,” said his father.

“Oh, probably,” said the son. “Don’t these people ever learn self-control?”

“Self-control is a late arrival in the social scheme. There are three points about the average working-man that you ought to know, Charles.”

“What are they?”

“Firstly, that the uneducated man knows everything. Secondly, that he sulks if you suggest that his knowledge is not universal. Thirdly, that his goodwill or badwill towards you is purely emotional, and that it may cost you no more than a shilling.”

“Oh, Corrie!” said his wife.

“I’m afraid it is true—in the main, Lucy. One has to cultivate a benign tolerance, and not to expect too much.”

But there were other incidents in the career of Gurney that caused Southfleet to wonder.

He wore shabby clothes.

The state of his wardrobe caused the Misses Plimsoll to pull wry faces.

His socks! And the tails of his shirts! He appeared to possess only two shirts, one in the wash, one on. Moreover, these deplorable garments were not fit to be sent to a self-respecting laundry. As a gentleman’s shirts they were a disgrace.

How could you doctor such tatters?

And his shoes needed soling.

After all, Gurney received a hundred and twenty pounds a year, and the cost of his board and lodging amounted to only twenty-five shillings a week. What became of the surplus? Yes, Euphemia, answer me that!

The Misses Plimsoll discussed the problem. Really, Mr. Gurney must be spoken to about his linen. It was quite indecent for such shirts to leave No. 7, Cashiobury Terrace for Southfleet’s Sanitary Laundry.

“You had better speak to him, Caroline.”

“Why me?”

“You see more of him than I do, and you are older than I am.”

“Just seventeen months,” said Miss Caroline, tartly.

Miss Caroline did dare to speak to Gurney about the state of his wardrobe. She elevated it to the level of a duty, an almost maternal duty.

“Do you mind, sir, if I mention a certain matter?”

“What is it, Miss Plimsoll?”

Miss Caroline put her mouth in order. “It’s—your clothes, sir. I mean—your underclothes. You really do need some new ones.”

“Do I?”

Now, I ask you, should not a man know the state of his own shirt-tails?

“They really are, sir, past—mending—and washing.”

“Dear me, as bad as all that?”

“I’m sorry to say they are, sir.”

Gurney looked coy. “Thank you, Miss Plimsoll. I will do something about it.”

The Rev. John Gurney purchased two new shirts, and some socks and etceteras, not from Mr. Chignell in the High Street, but from a new, cut-price shop in the Victoria Road. The Misses Plimsoll had a very poor opinion of the new etceteras. If you held them up to the light you could almost see through them.

“Dear, dear, what rubbish!”

“He will sit through them in a month.”

Miss Caroline looked austere. “I wouldn’t have put it quite like that. What the poor man needs is a mother.”

Then, there was another incident upon which the good ladies felt it their right to register a protest. There were limits to the refined patience of No. 7.

It happened too, on a Sabbath. The Misses Plimsoll had prepared for Gurney a good Sabbatarian and English dinner, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Miss Euphemia might not have surprised the scandal had she not found that she had forgotten a handkerchief and gone upstairs to fetch one. Miss Euphemia had a slight cold in the head. And what did she see when she happened to look out of the window, a most dirty tramp squatting on the little lawn, and Gurney presenting him with his plate of good Sunday food.

Miss Euphemia rushed downstairs to tell her sister.

“A—tish—oo. What do you think he is doing?”

What could Gurney be doing but eating his midday meal?

“Eating his dinner, I hope.”

“No, giving it to a most disgusting tramp, and in the front garden.”

“Good gracious, the man’s mad!”

Miss Caroline had to run upstairs and see the sight for herself. There was no doubt about it. A hairy, red-nosed gentleman sat on the green grass carpet with the plate between his knees, and Gurney was chatting to him. The gentleman’s trousers were frayed and patched, his coat ragged, and a deplorable hat reposed beside him. Well, I never! Southfleet did not believe in selling all you had and giving it to the poor. Nor does anybody, for that matter. Even the benign Dr. Richmond could say: “Never have anything to do with unlucky people. It may not be bad luck, but a rotten heredity.” And he could say: “Many of the people whom I treat for nothing give me more trouble and less gratitude than the patients who pay.” Miss Caroline was shocked. Fancy a man giving away her good food to a drunken scarecrow like that!

The window was open at the top, and Miss Caroline heard the scarecrow say: “You haven’t got a pair of boots you could spare, guv’nor?”

“I may have,” said Gurney. “I’ll go and see.”

Oh, would he! This reckless debauching of the sponging class must be arrested. Miss Caroline, full of indignation and a sense of duty, confronted Gurney on the stairs.

“Mr. Gurney, how—could—you?”

“What, Miss Plimsoll?”

“Give away the good food we had cooked for you to a creature like that? And—in—our—garden!”

“The man hadn’t had a meal.”

“So he said. Look at his nose, Mr. Gurney, just look at his nose!”

Gurney looked down on his own nose at the lady.

“It was—my—dinner, Miss Plimsoll. I don’t ask for a second helping.”

“I should think not, sir. And I think I heard him ask for boots.”

“He did.”

“You must be very innocent, sir. Don’t you know what he will do with the boots? Sell them and buy drink. I really must protest.”

“Must you, Miss Plimsoll?”

“Yes, I must. We can’t have a scene like this in our front garden. I am going to send the man away.”

Send him away she did. The tramp was mopping up good gravy with a piece of bread, but Miss Caroline snatched the plate away from him.

“Go away—at once, or I’ll send for the police.”

The scarecrow, having filled his belly, winked at her.

“Right you are, old dear. I’ve had the fat, and you’re a bit tough and gristly, aren’t you. Take it and wash up.”

And with this insolent adieu, he collected his hat and a sack, belched, and departed.

Southfleet heard of this incident, for one or two neighbours had witnessed the strange scene, and had commented upon it both kindly and unkindly. The Rev. John Gurney might be hailed as a Christlike creature, or as an eccentric, or even as a histrionic person who could pose to his public. The news was passed to the Rev. Egbert Jones and to Mrs. Jones. They discussed it at breakfast, and the vicaress was of the opinion that Egbert should speak like a father to Gurney.

“I don’t think he can quite appreciate the—a’hem—atmosphere of this parish. It isn’t Poplar, Egbert.”

“No, my dear, but——”

“Don’t you see that it is bringing disrespect upon the cloth?”

Mr. Jones had just suffered an accident with the marmalade pot, and the lapse was suggestive.

“After all, Emily, it is somewhat in the tradition.”

“What tradition?”

“Of the primitive church. I’m not a mediaevalist; I move with the times, but if a curate of mine chooses to give away his dinner, what cause have I to——?”

“My dear Egbert, it is too stagy. Now I come to think of it, he does remind me a little of Henry Irving.”

“But his dinner is his dinner, to do with as he pleases.”

“It would have been much better inside him, than——”

“I may agree, Emily, but it doesn’t follow——”

“I think you are being very short-sighted. We don’t want a mountebank in the parish. Unless this kind of thing is checked—it may——”

“May what?”

“Cause criticism—and a schism. You know how foolish people are. If Gurney poses as a saint——”

“Well, he may be a saint, Emily.”

And then Mrs. Jones said a very significant and prophetic thing.

“It might—er—affect your—authority, Egbert.”

“My authority?”

“Yes, I don’t think it does for a subordinate to be too popular.”

Maybe, those words of his wife’s planted a drop of slow poison in the mind of the Rev. Egbert Jones, but, for the present, he chose to maintain a discreet watchfulness, and what he described as tolerance and an open mind. His little curate might make an ass of himself, so far as Mr. Jones was concerned, provided that the ass was not a beast of Balaam. Probably, Gurney was one of those harmless idiots with too much emotion and not enough mind, and Southfleet would smile at him and find him a suitable nickname. Something like “Little Johnny Kiss the Kids”, or “Our Shabby Saint”, or even “Dear Little Blarney!”

Yet, there were other people who were persuaded to take Gurney very seriously, and Mr. Slade and Dr. Corrie Richmond were among them. Mr. Slade, being himself somewhat of a saint, and not in conscious competition with any St. Francis, divined in John Gurney that rare guilelessness and ardent integrity which to the worldly may seem histrionic humbug. All great art is founded on simplicity, and the artist may partake of that simplicity, be he priest, poet or painter. Mr. Slade could assert that there was an art of Beautiful Behaviour, though it might be more rare than creation in colour, and the more Mr. Slade saw of Gurney, the more convinced was he that Gurney was an exponent of that art. He was utterly and strangely free from snobbery. He did not talk down or up, and he could talk to any man with a naturalness that was unconscious art and good humanity. He could talk to the watermen and fisher-folk, the labouring men, and publicans and sinners as though they were just men and he just such another man. He might be found sitting in a cottage scullery chatting to the good wife while she did her washing. He had even been seen helping to hang out that same washing.

Mr. Slade understood that this complete lack of snobbery might offend a part of Southfleet. That was the most strange thing about the Christian cult as practised by the many. Their God had been a carpenter’s son and a simple craftsman, but no carpenter could be admitted to a drawing-room save as a craftsman, and he could not be recognized as a social equal.

There was old Robinson the carpenter, who still sang in the choir, an old man with a beautiful head and a beautiful nature, but to some mutton-headed conventionalists among the ladies he was just Robinson, an inferior creature who wore an apron.

Mr. Slade might argue the matter with his daughter, for both of them had passed through the Valley of Snobs, and arrived at natural courtesy. Mr. Slade kept a shop; his daughter had been the daughter of an hotel-keeper. Moreover, Mr. Slade, with a scandalous past to his credit, could be regarded as one of those unique examples of God’s mercy, a brand that had been snatched from the burning.

Said Mr. Slade to Rose: “There are two forms of humbug, one which asserts that all men are equal, the other which assumes the false inequality of the snob. The most obvious thing in life to any impartial observer is the unequal social value of various men.”

“Yet, they call you a Radical.”

“And so I am, I suppose, my dear, in the radical sense. I like to get to the root of things. Social status should depend upon social value. Life should sift out the dross from the fine metal.”

“But if men had equal chances?”

“The ladder would still remain, my dear. Some would climb, some would squat in stupid sloth at the bottom. The older I grow the less love I have for the theorists, and the cold-blooded and busy people who must mind everybody’s business but their own. Your idealist can be a most dangerous person and often so very unlikeable.”

“Then—if Mr. Gurney——?”

“I think there is something different about Gurney. He lives the life, and doesn’t merely prate about it.”

Dr. Corrie Richmond was a True Blue Tory, perhaps because he was brought into close contact as a healer with the aristocracy of brains and of health. Not that poor physique condemned a man to dwell with the slugocracy; a fine and sensitive soul could inhabit a delicate body, like a tempered blade in a flimsy scabbard. More spirit and less crude flesh to clog it. For, regarded as a physical specimen, the Rev. John Gurney was not impressive, below the level of his chin. Two of him might have gone to the making of a blacksmith, but no two smiths could have forged his spirit.

In the vulgar parlance Gurney was a “Surprise Packet”. Dr. Richmond found him one day sitting beside the bed of one of his patients, a particularly difficult patient, one of those surly souls who appear to be born with a hereditary grievance. Young Smiles—the name did not fit him—was a painter and decorator, a meagre, disgruntled creature with an incompetent chest. In winter he suffered from asthma and bronchitis, and to Smiles his physical disharmony was due to the social disharmonies which embittered him. He had to paint doors and windows in cold weather; that was an injustice. He also had to paint stuffy and dusty interiors, and that too was an injustice. All Bob Smiles sentences began with a “Why?” “Why should I be like this? Why should I have to——? Why can’t I be——?” Dr. Richmond described him as a creature born with a paltry body and a sore soul. And was the sore soul the product of the paltry body?

The man had one of those rabid, bitter little faces, a smudge of a black moustache, poor and prominent teeth, pale yet angry eyes. He was like a rat nibbling at something, and that something was a grievance. Why, why, why? Dr. Richmond did not like Bob Smiles. He suffered him. The fellow had the gift of the gab, and a sneering discontent that could poison other men.

And here was Gurney sitting beside the bed of a poor little prig who boasted that he was an atheist. Gurney stood up with that luminous smile of his, and made it plain that he would efface himself and leave the patient to his doctor.

“I’ll get out of the way, sir.”

“No need, Mr. Gurney.”

“Well, I have work, like you have, doctor.”

The sick man’s eyes were on Gurney. “Thank you for coming—though I don’t believe in your stuff.”

How gracious! Gurney smiled from the doorway. “That doesn’t matter, Bob. We’re just men together.”

Dr. Richmond sat down to question and examine his patient. Yes, there was no doubt about it, Robert Smiles was better. If one could get the bug of self-pity out of him he might be better still.

“You’re on the mend, Smiles.”

“I can’t take that last medicine.”

“Well, don’t take it. Try a dose of Mr. Gurney.”

Bob looked surprised and supercilious. “Him? Funny little bloke. Means well—I suppose. Just a dope-merchant.”

Dr. Richmond folded up his stethoscope. “Well, try a dose of the dope, my lad. Your trouble is, if I may say so, that you feel sore with yourself, and sulk about it. A little soothing syrup might do you good.”