The Extermination (Pain)

by Barry Pain

THE EXTERMINATION

By BARRY PAIN

MR. ROBSON BARTLET had a weakness for being an Authority. If, for example, you told him what you had done to improve your tennis-lawn, he would say: "Well, you've ruined that, at any rate." Asked his opinion of any investment, he informed you either that it was all right if you wanted to lose your money, or that many safer things yielded a better interest. He did not conceal from you that you were smoking the wrong cigarettes and drinking the wrong claret, that you were being swindled by your coal merchant, and that your tailor did not know his business. He doubted the bona fides of your solicitor and the stability of your insurance office. If he heard what make of motor-car you had just bought, he would say: "I wish I'd known before that you were going to do that—I might have saved you." He checked admiration. If you had spent an enjoyable evening at the theatre, you would find that Bartlet had been so bored by the same piece that he left after the first act. Your favourite singer was certain to be somebody who, in Bartlet's opinion, had never had a voice or had lost it. The pictures that you admired would make him smile at your childishness. And on such occasions his favourite phrase was: "And I assure you the experts think just as I do." Nor was it of any use to quote by name experts who thought differently; that, as Bartlet would show you, only proved that they were not experts. It was safe to admire anything that Bartlet possessed, or anything that Bartlet had done; but, as he had not done very much, the field was limited.

But there was just one subject on which any casual acquaintance might chat freely in the presence of Bartlet without the least fear of correction or interruption. That subject was the law. However absurd the mistake, Bartlet said nothing. He was by profession a solicitor, and he did not give to casual acquaintances what he sold to clients.

He had several other sterling qualities, including strict probity in business hours, white whiskers, and temperate habits. But, in spite of them, Bartlet was not popular. Popularity has its mysteries, and many attain to it most easily who least deserve it. But it is safe to say that the Discouraging Authority is rarely popular. Such is the weakness of human nature, that we do not like to be told we are wrong even when we are. Still less do we like to be told we are wrong when we happen to be right. And we do not love our corrector the more if he keeps silence on the one subject which he really understands.

Now, it had happened that Maddison and I had been playing auction-bridge at the club in the afternoon. Robson Bartlet never plays, but he had been present as a spectator, and had not, perhaps, shown as much reticence as is expected from a spectator of the game. At any rate, Maddison was feeling sore about it. He was speaking of Bartlet at dinner. Bartlet also was dining at the club, but he was at a table at the other end of the room, out of earshot, which was, perhaps, just as well.

"We call this a Christian country," said Maddison, "and yet I'm not allowed to poison the soup of that hairy-faced reptile Bartlet, or to cut out his silly tongue. As he happens to be a member here, I can't even be reasonably rude to him. He comes oiling into the room, stands where he can see three hands, and, after the game's over, tells me I could have made another trick. Of course it was true that, if I'd not taken the finesse, I should have caught the king. But in no possible way could I tell the king was cold without looking over my opponent's cards. I don't mind his ignorance or his——"

At that moment Blake sat down at our table and asked what was the matter with Maddison.

"Too much Bartlet," growled Maddison.

"You needn't worry about him," said Blake. "I'm going to exterminate him."

Blake is a small and quiet man, and does not talk for show.

"Glad to hear it," said Maddison. "But what have you got against him?"

"I'll put it as shortly as I can," said Blake. "I was talking to Thompson about something I intended to do, if it was legal. Thompson thought it was, and so did I. As we were talking, Bartlet came and stood by us; he heard everything and said nothing. Then he started to tell Thompson about the only man in London who can make boots. Well, I didn't do what I intended to do, because I thought that, after all, I'd better see my own lawyer first. If I had done it, I should have lost a lot of money and suffered a deal of inconvenience. Bartlet would have let me go on. He's a bore and an interfering nuisance, of course, but this puts on the lid. I'm exterminating Bartlet."

"It's all very well," I said, "but a solicitor has to pay for his special training. Is he to give away his advice to every member of his club for nothing?"

"You're muddled," said Blake. "I don't want his advice, and, if I did, I'd pay for it. But it couldn't have hurt him—as a matter of fact, it would have helped him—if he had warned me that I needed legal advice. It was not to him that I told the story; it was to Thompson. I wasn't fishing for any gratis assistance."

"All the same, you can't exterminate him," said Maddison. "I wish you could."

"Don't be afraid. I can and I shall."

As we were all sitting and smoking after dinner, Bartlet strolled up. He gave a little sniff.

"What's that cigarette you're smoking?" he asked Blake.

"Archimedes," said Blake pleasantly. "Know them?"

"I once smoked part of one. I really don't know why you should smoke Archimedes when there are at least fifty better brands on the market at the same price."

"Well," said Blake mildly, "perhaps the Archimedes cigarettes have improved. Won't you just try one?"

He offered his case, and Bartlet waved it aside.

"No, thank you," he said. "I know Archimedes by heart—lowest-grade tobacco combined with chopped straw."

Blake put the case down open on the table beside him.

"And what do you smoke yourself?" he asked.

It seemed to me that Bartlet rather liked this question.

"Ah," he said, "my cigarettes are not on the market at all. I get the tobacco as a special favour, and they are made for me only. The experts agree with me that there is nothing so fine to be bought for the money in London. I wish I could tell you how to get them, but, unfortunately, the supply is strictly limited. However, if you like to try one——"

Blake took one, and said it was most awfully good of him, which seemed to me a little excessive.

And then Blake did an astounding thing. With Bartlet's cigarette in his hand, he picked up his own case and, under cover of shutting it, slipped Bartlet's cigarette into it and extracted another Archimedes. It was most clumsily done. I have never seen worse conjuring even in an amateur. I was sorry to see, too, that Bartlet had also spotted it. He watched Blake narrowly as he lit the Archimedes cigarette.

"What do you think of it, Blake?" he asked.

"Heavenly! Much better than my own."

"That's right," said Bartlet, and stalked away.

"I suppose you know that any fool could see you change those cigarettes," said Maddison.

"Really?" said Blake, unperturbed.

"What's worse," I said, "Bartlet saw it. He knows you've got his extra-special in your case, and that you're really smoking one of your own."

"Very likely," said Blake. "But what of it?"

"Just this—any little practical joke you intended to play on Bartlet over his cigarettes will be a failure. It doesn't look very hopeful for the prospects of extermination."

"The prospects were never better," said Blake. "And now let's look at the cigarette that can't be bought in London." He produced it from his case. "Rather large. Oval. Good tobacco. No mark on the rice-paper except the name 'Robson Bartlet, Esq.,' in small gilt letters. Handy for him. Then, if he forgets who he is, he can look at one of his cigarettes."

"But how is this going to exterminate Bartlet?" asked Maddison.

In reply, Blake quoted a saying which Mr. Asquith had recently made popular as to the advisability of delaying judgment until you are acquainted with the issue.

Then for some days we saw no more of Blake, and had almost forgotten the incident of the cigarette. Then he turned up at dinner at the club, and asked us if we felt positive that Bartlet had seen him change the cigarettes. Maddison and I both felt sure of it.

"I'm sorry, Blake," said Maddison. "It's quite an easy trick, and if you had only given it a little practice, you'd have been all right. As it was, you were clumsy. If that cigarette forms any part of your scheme for scoring off Bartlet——"

"It certainly does," said Blake.

"Then you'd better chuck it and try something else. Bartlet's a nuisance, but he's not an idiot."

"You think that if I made some excuse and offered him my case open with only one cigarette in it, that same cigarette being placed so as to hide the inscription upon it, Robson Bartlet, Esquire, would have a suspicion that I was tendering him his own cigarette back again under a different name?"

"Suspicion? He'd have a certainty. And he'd only have to look at the name on the rice-paper."

"True. So he would."

"And the laugh would be all against you—your little practical joke would have broken down—he'd be triumphant."

"I'm not quite so sure of that. I'll try, if a good opportunity offers."

Apparently, a good opportunity did offer. After dinner we found Mr. Robson explaining to a group of hardened and experienced golfers what were the weak points of the game, and why he had never thought it worth while to take it up.

Blake went straight up to Bartlet.

"I say, Bartlet, I wish you'd do me a favour. You once tried the Archimedes cigarette and found it rotten."

"I'm afraid I can't go back on that."

"Well, I do think they've improved immensely of late. I wish you'd try one—just a whiff or two of it, at any rate, so as to give me your opinion."

He opened his cigarette case. There was one cigarette in it. The shape and size gave it away. Besides, it was placed by Blake with considerable care, with the inscription downward just before he offered it. Maddison looked at me and shook his head.

"You needn't mind taking the last one," said Blake. "I've a box of them in my pocket."

"Oh, very well," said Bartlet. "If you think my opinion of any value, I don't mind giving it."

He took the cigarette and bent down to take a match from the match-stand on the table. As he did so, he took one quick glance at the name on the cigarette. His position hid him from Maddison and Blake, but I could see him from where I stood. He did it very quickly and neatly, and his eyes lighted up. I felt rather sorry for Blake.

Bartlet lit the cigarette and smoked placidly, and said nothing.

"Well?" said Blake.

"You'd like me to speak candidly?"

"Oh, do."

"Well, my palate does not often lead me astray. This is not an Archimedes cigarette. I've tried the Archimedes cigarette once, and I know. If I mistake not, this is one of my own cigarettes—the cigarettes that are made solely for me from a tobacco which never comes into the market. If so, it will have my name printed on it. If the name is not there, I will confess at once that I am wrong." Here he examined the cigarette. "I am not wrong. My name is there. I suppose it never occurred to you to look for any mark on the paper. The name is so small that it escaped your notice. You people that try to be too clever generally overlook some trifle that gives you away. It puzzled me at first to think how you could have got the cigarette. But I remember now that I gave you one. I supposed you smoked it, but no doubt you kept it for this little game. And a pretty rotten game it's turning out for you, isn't it?"

"Oh, not so bad," said Blake genially.

"Not so bad? Well, a practical joke is a poor thing when it succeeds, and when it breaks down, the joker looks pretty ridiculous. You gave me back my own cigarette in the hopes I should take it for something else and abuse it. Nobody who was a judge of tobacco could possibly have been taken in by your silly trick."

"Perhaps not. But you're taken in, all the same, taken in all the way round, dished and cooked. To start with, that cigarette which you are smoking with such ostentatious enjoyment is not one of your own cigarettes at all."

"Nonsense! It has my own name on it."

"That may be. You are not the only man who can get that name printed on a piece of rice-paper. Having got one of your cigarettes, it was easy enough to get replicas made differing in only one point, and that's in the tobacco. The tobacco you're now smoking is the lowest-grade stuff I could buy, and is used for the very cheapest cigarettes."

"How am I to know there's any truth in that?"

"Take one of your own cigarettes from your own case and open it. Then open the cigarette you are smoking. You will see the two tobaccos are not even of the same colour. Also I have the evidence of the highly respectable firm that made these little connoisseur-traps for me. No, you can't get away, Bartlet. One more little point—you asked me what cigarettes I was smoking. I knew that, whatever I said, you'd condemn it. So I said Archimedes, and, so far as I know, there is not, and never has been, a cigarette of that name. But you knew all about the Archimedes cigarette, you did. You'd smoked part of one and found it beastly, you had."

"A man may make a mistake in remembering a name."

"He may. And he may make a mistake in thinking that he's got a palate, and in——"

"I simply decline to discuss the matter," said Bartlet, and turned away in fury. And the men who sat around smiled broadly.

I doubt if Blake really intended to exterminate Bartlet. But the life of a deposed authority is not pleasant in the club where he originally set up his pedestal. He becomes subject to chaff. So when Bartlet discussed comparative golf-balls and gave his decision, somebody asked him if he had ever tried the Archimedes. When he spoke of his recent acquisition of a signed work of art, people reminded him that the name on a cigarette paper was not necessarily a criterion of the tobacco inside.

So Bartlet began to back his bill at luncheon and dinner, and then sent in his resignation on the ground that of late the cuisine had gone to the dogs.

But a man who has once been an authority does not easily give up the position. Bartlet has already set up his pedestal in another club, to which I offer my respectful sympathy.

Copyright, 1915, by Barry Pain, in the United States of America.