I did not see Scudamour again for a long time, for I took care to keep
out of his way; but I heard first from him and then of him. One day he
wrote to me saying that his nephew was going to Bombay, and would I be
so good as to give the youth an introduction to my brother Henry? He
also asked me to dine with him and his nephew. I declined the dinner,
but I sent the nephew the required note of introduction to Henry. The
next I heard of Scudamour was from Pettigrew. "By the way," said
Pettigrew, "Scudamour is in Edinburgh at present." I trembled, for
Edinburgh is where Alexander lives. "What has taken him there?" I
asked, with assumed carelessness. Pettigrew believed it was business;
"but," he added, "Scudamour asked me to tell you that he meant to call
on Alexander, as he was anxious to see Henry's children." A few days
afterward I had a telegram from Alexander, who generally uses this
means of communication when he corresponds with me.
"Do you know a man, Scudamour? Reply," was what Alexander said. I
thought of answering that we had met a man of that name when we were in
Paris; but after consideration, I replied boldly: "Know no one of name
of Scudamour."
About two months ago I passed Scudamour in Regent Street, and he
scowled at me. This I could have borne if there had been no more of
Henry; but I knew that Scudamour was now telling everybody about
Henry's wife.
By and by I got a letter from an old friend of Alexander's asking me if
there was any truth in a report that Alexander was going to Bombay.
Soon afterward Alexander wrote to me saying he had been told by several
persons that I was going to Bombay. In short, I saw that the time had
come for killing Henry. So I told Pettigrew that Henry had died of
fever, deeply regretted; and asked him to be sure to tell Scudamour,
who had always been interested in the deceased's welfare. Pettigrew
afterward told me that he had communicated the sad intelligence to
Scudamour. "How did he take it?" I asked. "Well," Pettigrew said,
reluctantly, "he told me that when he was up in Edinburgh he did not
get on well with Alexander. But he expressed great curiosity as to
Henry's children." "Ah," I said, "the children were both drowned in
the Forth; a sad affair--we can't bear to talk of it." I am not likely
to see much of Scudamour again, nor is Alexander. Scudamour now goes
about saying that Henry was the only one of us he really liked.
GILRAY'S FLOWER-POT
By J. M. BARRIE
I charge Gilray's unreasonableness to his ignoble passion for
cigarettes; and the story of his flower-pot has therefore an obvious
moral. The want of dignity he displayed about that flower-pot, on his
return to London, would have made any one sorry for him. I had my own
work to look after, and really could not be tending his chrysanthemum
all day. After he came back, however, there was no reasoning with him,
and I admit that I never did water his plant, though always intending
to do so.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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