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Words: 20430 in 6 pages
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Editor: Various
THE NEWSMONGER.
He is nothing if not omniscient; and, like Othello, his occupation's gone if he be not the first to spread the news and carry the fiery cross of scandal to the front. For the Newsmonger does not care to carry good news so much as bad; the latter having a dash of spice in it, wanting to the former--as red pepper titillates the palate more than does either honey or sugar. The Newsmonger knows everything, and foresees as much as he knows. When A's sudden bankruptcy takes the world in general by surprise, he, on the contrary, is not the least astonished. He knew it weeks ago. He can put in black and white the exact sum for which he has failed--for all that the books are still in the safe, and the accountant has not begun to score up the items; and he knows who is the largest creditor, who the most implacable, and what is the bad debt which has caused all the mischief. He takes care, however, not to state plainly all these things. He only says he knows; and people are found to believe him. When Mrs B runs off with Mr C, and thus exposes the hollowness of the domestic happiness of the B's, which was considered so complete; he knew all about that, too, long before it happened. Indeed, he had warned C that he was going too far, and that harm would come of it, Mrs B being but a feather-head at the best; and he had even thrown out friendly hints to B, advising him to be a little more strict in his guard and watchful in his care. But no man is so deaf as he who will not hear, nor so blind as he who will not see; and B was bent on his own destruction, and would not be enlightened. Whom the gods would destroy, they first madden; and what is the use of hammering your head against a stone wall? Again, when Edwin and Angelina come to an abrupt rupture, and the engagement which promised so well and looked so satisfactory all round, is broken off in a hurry, to the open-mouthed amazement of society--though the cause remains a profound mystery to all the rest, Our Newsmonger winks knowingly when he gives you the story, and tells you that he is in the confidence of both parties, and understands the whole thing from end to end. How should he not, when he has been consulted from the beginning, and himself advised the rupture as the only thing left to be done? Whatever happens, he has been at the back of it; and no event takes place of which he has not been cognisant or ever it was made manifest to the crass public. This must needs be, seeing that he is the general adviser of the whole world, and taken into every one's confidence, from the laying of the egg to the strutting forth of the full-plumaged fowl.
And after all, it was strange, was it not? that, knowing of this coming insurrection at the back of the unpronounceable mountains, Our Newsmonger should have gone in for a rise, when Panslavonic Unifieds were so sure to come down with a rattling run, as soon as the first gun was fired by the obscure tribes aforesaid? Those who like it can accept the explanation as gospel truth and sure; but a healthy scepticism is not a bad state of mind for the more wary to cultivate, and the doctrine of infallibility is not so fashionable as it used to be.
There is nothing that does not pass through the alembic of the Newsmonger. He knows the exact spot in the house where each man keeps his skeleton, and he can pitch the precise note struck when the bones rattle in the wind and the poor possessor turns pale at the sound. Mrs Screwer starves her servants; but then Mr Screwer gambles, and the family funds are always in a state of fluctuation which makes things too uncertain to be counted on. Mrs Towhead scolds her household till she maddens the maids and dazes the men, so that they do not know which end stands uppermost. But then Mr Towhead sends the poor woman mad herself by his open goings-on with that little minx round the corner. And if Mrs Towhead takes it out in a general conflagration, is it to be wondered at, seeing the provocation she has? The Spendthrifts are out at elbows, and no one can get paid, for all they gave that magnificent ball last week on the coming of age of young Hopeful, who inherits more debts than rents, and has more holes in his purse than coin to stop them with. Miss Hangonhand is taken to Paris for the chance of a husband, those in London proving shy and the supply not equalling the demand; and Dr Leech's bill was exorbitant, and a lawsuit was threatened if he would not abate just one half. And then that Mr Fieri Facias--have you not heard that he has been dealing with his clients' securities, and that if matters were looked into he would be now standing in the dock of the Old Bailey? I assure you they say so; and for my part I always believe that where there is much smoke there must be some fire! The Bank, too, is shaky; and you who are a shareholder, and you who are a depositor, had both better get out of it without a day's delay.
All these things, and more, Our Newsmonger will say with a glib tongue and a light heart; and whether what he says has a grain of truth, or is pure unmixed and unmitigated falsehood, troubles him no more than if the wind blows from the south-west or the south-south-west with a point to spare. He can retail a bit of gossip which will make his visit pass easily and keep the conversation from lagging; and which also will put him into the position of one who knows, and thus place him on rising ground while his friends are only in the shallows. And what matters it if, for this miserable little gain, he obscures a reputation, breaks a heart, destroys a life? He has had his pleasure, which was to appear wiser than the rest; and if others have to pay the bill, the loss is theirs, not his!
A Newsmonger of this kind is the very pest of the neighbourhood where he may have pitched his tent. A fox with silent feet and cruel flair prowling about the henroost where the nestling chickens lie--a viewless wind laden with poison-germs, and bringing death wherever it blows--a lurking snake, hidden in the long grass and discovered only when it has stung--these and any other similes that can be gathered, expressive of silent secret wrong-doing to innocent things, may be taken as the signs of the Newsmonger in small places where propinquity places reputations at the mercy of all who choose to attack them. From such, may the good grace of fortune and the honest tongues of the sturdy and the upright deliver us!--for if all the evil that is said of men were tracked to its source, that source would be found to lie, not in fact, but in the fertile imagination of the Newsmonger. After all, we know nothing better than each other. And as we have to live in human communion, it is as well to live in peace and harmony, and in seeing the best, and not the worst. The Newsmonger thinks differently. But then those who are wise discard him as a nuisance and a mischief-maker; and their way in life is all the more peaceful in consequence.
BY MEAD AND STREAM.
BY CHARLES GIBBON.
Mr Beecham returned.
'The young people are crowding in now; and Mrs Joy and the schoolmistress with some of their friends are trying to place them comfortably, so that the smallest may have the front benches. Come along and help them.'
The long narrow hall was already well filled, the faces of the children shining with the combined effect of recent scrubbing and excitement. Some of the youngest faces wore a half-frightened expression, for the only magician they knew about was the wicked one in the story of Aladdin, and they did not know what the magician they were to see to-night might do to them. But others had seen this conjurer performing on the village green in open daylight on fair-days, and were able to reassure the timid ones, whilst regaling them in loud whispers with exaggerated accounts of the wonderful things he had done.
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