THE NEW MACHIAVELLI

3

While I lived at Penge two little things happened to me, trivial in

themselves and yet in their quality profoundly significant. They

had this in common, that they pierced the texture of the life I was

quietly taking for granted and let me see through it into realities-

realities I had indeed known about before but never realised. Each

of these experiences left me with a sense of shock, with all the

values in my life perplexingly altered, attempting readjustment.

One of these disturbing and illuminating events was that I was

robbed of a new pocket-knife and the other that I fell in love. It

was altogether surprising to me to be robbed. You see, as an only

child I had always been fairly well looked after and protected, and

the result was an amazing confidence in the practical goodness of

the people one met in the world. I knew there were robbers in the

world, just as I knew there were tigers; that I was ever likely to

meet robber or tiger face to face seemed equally impossible.

The knife as I remember it was a particularly jolly one with all

sorts of instruments in it, tweezers and a thing for getting a stone

out of the hoof of a horse, and a corkscrew; it had cost me a

carefuly accumulated half-crown, and amounted indeed to a new

experience in knives. I had had it for two or three days, and then

one afternoon I dropped it through a hole in my pocket on a footpath

crossing a field between Penge and Anerley. I heard it fall in the

way one does without at the time appreciating what had happened,

then, later, before I got home, when my hand wandered into my pocket

to embrace the still dear new possession I found it gone, and

instantly that memory of something hitting the ground sprang up into

consciousness. I went back and commenced a search. Almost

immediately I was accosted by the leader of a little gang of four or

five extremely dirty and ragged boys of assorted sizes and slouching

carriage who were coming from the Anerley direction.

"Lost anythink, Matey?" said he.

I explained.

"'E's dropped 'is knife," said my interlocutor, and joined in the

search.

"What sort of 'andle was it, Matey?" said a small white-faced

sniffing boy in a big bowler hat.

I supplied the information. His sharp little face scrutinised the

ground about us.

"GOT it," he said, and pounced.

"Give it 'ere," said the big boy hoarsely, and secured it.

I walked towards him serenely confident that he would hand it over

to me, and that all was for the best in the best of all possible

worlds.

"No bloomin' fear!" he said, regarding me obliquely. "Oo said it

was your knife?"

Remarkable doubts assailed me. "Of course it's my knife," I said.

The other boys gathered round me.

"This ain't your knife," said the big boy, and spat casually.

"I dropped it just now."

"Findin's keepin's, I believe," said the big boy.

"Nonsense," I said. "Give me my knife."

"'Ow many blades it got?"

"Three."

"And what sort of 'andle?"

"Bone."

"Got a corkscrew like?"

"Yes."

"Ah! This ain't your knife no'ow. See?"

He made no offer to show it to me. My breath went.

"Look here!" I said. "I saw that kid pick it up. It IS my knife."

"Rot!" said the big boy, and slowly, deliberately put my knife into

his trouser pocket.

I braced my soul for battle. All civilisation was behind me, but I

doubt if it kept the colour in my face. I buttoned my jacket and

clenched my fists and advanced on my antagonist-he had, I suppose,

the advantage of two years of age and three inches of height. "Hand

over that knife," I said.

Then one of the smallest of the band assailed me with extraordinary

vigour and swiftness from behind, had an arm round my neck and a

knee in my back before I had the slightest intimation of attack, and

so got me down. "I got 'im, Bill," squeaked this amazing little

ruffian. My nose was flattened by a dirty hand, and as I struck out

and hit something like sacking, some one kicked my elbow. Two or

three seemed to be at me at the same time. Then I rolled over and

sat up to discover them all making off, a ragged flight, footballing

my cap, my City Merchants' cap, amongst them. I leapt to my feet in

a passion of indignation and pursued them.

But I did not overtake them. We are beings of mixed composition,

and I doubt if mine was a single-minded pursuit. I knew that honour

required me to pursue, and I had a vivid impression of having just

been down in the dust with a very wiry and active and dirty little

antagonist of disagreeable odour and incredible and incalculable

unscrupulousness, kneeling on me and gripping my arm and neck. I

wanted of course to be even with him, but also I doubted if catching

him would necessarily involve that. They kicked my cap into the

ditch at the end of the field, and made off compactly along a cinder

lane while I turned aside to recover my dishonoured headdress. As I

knocked the dust out of that and out of my jacket, and brushed my

knees and readjusted my very crumpled collar, I tried to focus this

startling occurrence in my mind.

I had vague ideas of going to a policeman or of complaining at a

police station, but some boyish instinct against informing prevented

that. No doubt I entertained ideas of vindictive pursuit and

murderous reprisals. And I was acutely enraged whenever I thought

of my knife. The thing indeed rankled in my mind for weeks and

weeks, and altered all the flavour of my world for me. It was the

first time I glimpsed the simple brute violence that lurks and peeps

beneath our civilisation. A certain kindly complacency of attitude

towards the palpably lower classes was qualified for ever