The unsympathetic Umbrella.

“Following my own judgment I should have pawned that umbrella, purchased one more suited to my state in life, and ‘blued’ the difference.  But I was fearful of offending my one respectable acquaintance, and for weeks struggled on, hampered by this plutocratic appendage.  The humble haddock was denied to me.  Tied to this imposing umbrella, how could I haggle with fishmongers for haddocks.  At first sight of me—or, rather, of my umbrella—they flew to icy cellars, brought up for my inspection soles at eighteenpence a pound, recommended me prime parts of salmon, which my landlady would have fried in a pan reeking with the mixed remains of pork chops, rashers of bacon and cheese.  It was closed to me, the humble coffee shop, where for threepence I could have strengthened my soul with half a pint of cocoa and four “doorsteps”—satisfactory slices of bread smeared with a yellow grease that before the days of County Council inspectors they called butter.  You know of them, Mrs. Wilkins?  At sight of such nowadays I should turn up my jaded nose.  But those were the days of my youth, Mrs. Wilkins.  The scent of a thousand hopes was in my nostrils: so they smelt good to me.  The fourpenny beefsteak pie, satisfying to the verge of repletion; the succulent saveloy, were not for the owner of the ivory-handled umbrella.  On Mondays and Tuesdays, perhaps, I could enjoy life at the rate of five hundred a year—clean serviette a penny extra, and twopence to the waiter, whose income must have been at least four times my own.  But from Wednesday to Saturday I had to wander in the wilderness of back streets and silent squares dinnerless, where there were not even to be found locusts and wild honey.

“It was, as I have said, a rainy season, and an umbrella of some sort was a necessity.  Fortunately—or I might not be sitting here, Mrs. Wilkins, talking to you now—my one respectable acquaintance was called away to foreign lands, and that umbrella I promptly put ‘up the spout.’  You understand me?”

Mrs. Wilkins admitted she did, but was of opinion that twenty-five per cent., to say nothing of the halfpenny for the ticket every time, was a wicked imposition.

“It did not trouble me, Mrs. Wilkins,” I replied, “in this particular instance.  It was my determination never to see that umbrella again.  The young man behind the counter seemed suspicious, and asked where I got it from.  I told him that a friend had given it to me.”

“‘Did he know that he had given it to you?” demanded the young man.

“Upon which I gave him a piece of my mind concerning the character of those who think evil of others, and he gave me five and six, and said he should know me again; and I purchased an umbrella suited to my rank and station, and as fine a haddock as I have ever tasted with the balance, which was sevenpence, for I was feeling hungry.

“The haddock is an excellent fish, Mrs. Wilkins,” I said, “and if, as you observe, we listened to all that was said we’d be hungrier at forty, with a balance to our credit at the bank, than ever we were at twenty, with ‘no effects’ beyond a sound digestion.”