and said in a low tone, full of meaning, “Let them eat!”
It appeared that this was one of those slow, insidious poisons. It did not kill the beetle off immediately, but it undermined his constitution. Day by day he would sink and droop without being able to tell what was the matter with himself, until one morning we should enter the kitchen to find him lying cold and very still.
So we made more stuff and laid it round each night, and the blackbeetles from all about the parish swarmed to it. Each night they came in greater quantities. They fetched up all their friends and relations. Strange beetles—beetles from other families, with no claim on us whatever—got to hear about the thing, and came in hordes, and tried to rob our blackbeetles of it. By the end of a week we had lured into our kitchen every beetle that wasn’t lame for miles round.
MacShaughnassy said it was a good thing. We should clear the suburb at one swoop. The beetles had now been eating this poison steadily for ten days, and he said that the end could not be far off. I was glad to hear it, because I was beginning to find this unlimited hospitality expensive. It was a dear poison that we were giving them, and they were hearty eaters.
We went downstairs to see how they were getting on. MacShaughnassy thought they seemed queer, and was of opinion that they were breaking up. Speaking for myself, I can only say that a healthier-looking lot of beetles I never wish to see.
One, it is true, did die that very evening. He was detected in the act of trying to make off with an unfairly large portion of the poison, and three or four of the others set upon him savagely and killed him.
But he was the only one, so far as I could ever discover, to whom MacShaughnassy’s recipe proved fatal. As for the others, they grew fat and sleek upon it. Some of them, indeed, began to acquire quite a figure. We lessened their numbers eventually by the help of some common oil-shop stuff. But such vast numbers, attracted by MacShaughnassy’s poison, had settled in the house, that to finally exterminate them now was hopeless.
I have not heard of MacShaughnassy’s aunt lately. Possibly, one of MacShaughnassy’s bosom friends has found out her address and has gone down and murdered her. If so, I should like to thank him.
I tried a little while ago to cure MacShaughnassy of his fatal passion for advice-giving, by repeating to him a very sad story that was told to me by a gentleman I met in an American railway car. I was travelling from Buffalo to New York, and, during the day, it suddenly occurred to me that I might make the journey more interesting by leaving the cars at Albany and completing the distance by water. But I did not know how the boats ran, and I had no guide-book with me. I glanced about for some one to question. A mild-looking, elderly gentleman sat by the next window reading a book, the cover of which was familiar to me. I deemed him to be intelligent, and approached him.
“I beg your pardon for interrupting you,” I said, sitting down opposite to him, “but could you give me any information about the boats between Albany and New York?”
“Well,” he answered, looking up with a pleasant smile, “there are three lines of boats altogether. There is the Heggarty line, but they only go as far as Catskill. Then there are the Poughkeepsie boats, which go every other day. Or there is what we call the canal boat.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well now, which would you advise me to—”
He jumped to his feet with a cry, and stood glaring down at me with a gleam in his eyes which was positively murderous.
“You villain!” he hissed in low tones of concentrated fury, “so that’s your game, is it? I’ll give you something that you’ll want advice about,” and he whipped out a six-chambered revolver.
I felt hurt. I also felt that if the interview were prolonged I might feel even more hurt. So I left him without a word, and drifted over to the other end of the car, where I took up a position between a stout lady and the door.
I was still musing upon the incident, when, looking up, I observed my elderly friend making towards me. I rose and laid my hand upon the door-knob. He should not find me unprepared. He smiled, reassuringly, however, and held out his hand.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “that maybe I was a little rude just now. I should like, if you will let me, to explain. I think, when you have heard my story, you will understand, and forgive me.”
There was that about him which made me trust him. We found a quiet corner in the smoking-car. I had a “whiskey sour,” and he prescribed for himself a strange thing of his own invention. Then we lighted our cigars, and he talked.
“Thirty years ago,” said he, “I was a young man with a healthy belief in myself, and a desire to do good to others. I did not imagine myself a genius. I did not even consider myself exceptionally brilliant or talented. But it did seem to me, and the more I noted the doings of my fellow-men and women, the more assured did I become of it, that I possessed plain, practical common sense to an unusual and remarkable degree. Conscious of this, I wrote a little book, which I entitled How to be Happy, Wealthy, and Wise, and published it at my own expense. I did not seek for profit. I merely wished to be useful.
“The book did not make the stir that I had anticipated. Some two or three hundred copies went off, and then the sale practically ceased.
“I confess that at first I was disappointed. But after a while, I reflected that, if people would not take my advice, it was more their loss than mine, and I dismissed the matter from my mind.
“One morning, about a twelvemonth afterwards, I was sitting in my study, when the servant entered to say that there was a man downstairs who wanted very much to see me.
“I gave instructions that he should be sent up, and up accordingly he came.
“He was a common man, but he had an open, intelligent countenance, and his manner was most respectful. I motioned him to be seated. He selected a chair, and sat down on the extreme edge of it.
“ ‘I hope you’ll pard’n this intrusion, sir,’ he began, speaking deliberately, and twirling his hat the while; ‘but I’ve come more’n two hundred miles to see you, sir.’
“I expressed myself as pleased, and he continued: ‘They tell me, sir, as you’re the gentleman as wrote that little book, How to be Happy, Wealthy, and Wise.”
He enumerated the three items slowly, dwelling lovingly on each. I admitted the fact.
“ ‘Ah, that’s a wonderful book, sir,’ he went on. ‘I ain’t one of them as has got brains of their own—not to speak of—but I know enough to know them as has; and when I read that little book, I says to myself, Josiah Hackett (that’s my name, sir), when you’re in doubt don’t you get addling that thick head o’ yours, as will only tell you all wrong; you go to the gentleman as wrote that little book and ask him for his advice. He is a kind-hearted gentleman, as any one can tell, and he’ll give it you; and when you’ve got it, you go straight ahead, full steam, and don’t you stop for nothing, ’cause he’ll know what’s best for you, same as he knows what’s best for everybody. That’s what I says, sir; and that’s what I’m here for.’
“He paused, and wiped his brow with a green cotton handkerchief. I prayed him to proceed.
“It appeared that the worthy fellow wanted to marry, but could not make up his mind whom he wanted to marry. He had his eye—so he expressed it—upon two young women, and they, he had reason to believe, regarded him in return with more than
