last year, travelling on the underground railway, i met a man; he was one of the saddest-looking men i had seen for years. i used to know him well in the old days when we were journalists together. i asked him, in a sympathetic tone, how things were going with him. i expected his response would be a flood of tears, and that in the end i should have to fork out a fiver. to my astonishment, his answer was that things were going exceedingly well with him. i did not want to say to him bluntly:

“then what has happened to you to make you look like a mute at a temperance funeral?” i said:

“and how are all at home?”

i thought that if the trouble lay there he would take the opportunity. it brightened him somewhat, the necessity of replying to the question. it appeared that his wife was in the best of health.

“you remember her,” he continued with a smile; “wonderful spirits, always cheerful, nothing seems to put her out, not even—”

he ended the sentence abruptly with a sigh.

his mother-in-law, i learned from further talk with him, had died since i had last met him, and had left them a comfortable addition to their income. his eldest daughter was engaged to be married.

“it is entirely a love match,” he explained, “and he is such a dear, good fellow, that i should not have made any objection even had he been poor. but, of course, as it is, i am naturally all the more content.”

his eldest boy, having won the mottle scholarship, was going up to cambridge in the autumn. his own health, he told me, had greatly improved; and a novel he had written in his leisure time promised to be one of the successes of the season. then it was that i spoke plainly.

“if i am opening a wound too painful to be touched,” i said, “tell me. if, on the contrary, it is an ordinary sort of trouble upon which the sympathy of a fellow worker may fall as balm, let me hear it.”

“so far as i am concerned,” he replied, “i should be glad to tell you. speaking about it does me good, and may lead—so i am always in hopes—to an idea. but, for your own sake, if you take my advice, you will not press me.”

“how can it affect me?” i asked, “it is nothing to do with me, is it?”

“it need have nothing to do with you,” he answered, “if you are sensible enough to keep out of it. if i tell you: from this time onward it will be your trouble also. anyhow, that is what has happened in four other separate cases. if you like to be the fifth and complete the half dozen of us, you are welcome. but remember i have warned you.”

“what has it done to the other five?” i demanded.

“it has changed them from cheerful, companionable persons into gloomy one-idead bores,” he told me. “they think of but one thing, they talk of but one thing, they dream of but one thing. instead of getting over it, as time goes on, it takes possession of them more and more. there are men, of course, who would be unaffected by it—who could shake it off. i warn you in particular against it, because, in spite of all that is said, i am convinced you have a sense of humour; and that being so, it will lay hold of you. it will plague you night and day. you see what it has made of me! three months ago a lady interviewer described me as of a sunny temperament. if you know your own business you will get out at the next station.”

i wish now i had followed his advice. as it was, i allowed my curiosity to take possession of me, and begged him to explain. and he did so.

“it was just about christmas time,” he said. “we were discussing the drury lane pantomime—some three or four of us—in the smoking room of the devonshire club, and young gold said he thought it would prove a mistake, the introduction of a subject like the fiscal question into the story of humpty dumpty. the two things, so far as he could see, had nothing to do with one another. he added that he entertained a real regard for mr. dan leno, whom he had once met on a steamboat, but that there were other topics upon which he would prefer to seek that gentleman’s guidance. nettleship, on the other hand, declared that he had no sympathy with the argument that artists should never intrude upon public affairs. the actor was a fellow citizen with the rest of us. he said that, whether one agreed with their conclusions or not, one must admit that the nation owed a debt of gratitude to mrs. brown potter and to miss olga nethersole for giving to it the benefit of their convictions. he had talked to both ladies in private on the subject and was convinced they knew as much about it as did most people.

“burnside, who was one of the party, contended that if sides were to be taken, a pantomime should surely advocate the free-food cause, seeing it was a form of entertainment supposed to appeal primarily to the tastes of the little englander. then i came into the discussion.

“‘the fiscal question,’ i said, ‘is on everybody’s tongue. such being the case, it is fit and proper it should be referred to in our annual pantomime, which has come to be regarded as a review of the year’s doings. but it should not have been dealt with from the political standpoint. the proper attitude to have assumed towards it was that of innocent raillery, free from all trace of partisanship.’

“old johnson had strolled up and was standing behind us.

“‘the very thing i have been trying to get hold of for weeks,’ he said—‘a bright, amusing resumé of the whole problem that should give offence to neither side. you know our paper,’ he continued; ‘we steer clear of politics, but, at the same time, try to be up-to-date; it is not always easy. the treatment of the subject, on the lines you suggest, is just what we require. i do wish you would write me something.’

“he is a good old sort, johnson; it seemed an easy thing. i said i would. since that time i have been thinking how to do it. as a matter of fact, i have not thought of much else. maybe you can suggest something.”

i was feeling in a good working mood the next morning.

“pilson,” said i to myself, “shall have the benefit of this. he does not need anything boisterously funny. a few playfully witty remarks on the subject will be the ideal.”

i lit a pipe and sat down to think. at half-past twelve, having to write some letters before going out to lunch, i dismissed the fiscal question from my mind.

but not for long. it worried me all the afternoon. i thought, maybe, something would come to me in the evening. i wasted all that evening, and i wasted all the following morning. everything has its amusing side, i told myself. one turns out comic stories about funerals, about weddings. hardly a misfortune that can happen to mankind but has produced its comic literature. an american friend of mine once took a contract from the editor of an insurance journal to write four humorous stories; one was to deal with an earthquake, the second with a cyclone, the third with a flood, and the fourth with a thunderstorm. and more amusing stories i have never read. what is the matter with the fiscal question?

i myself have written lightly on bime-metallism. home rule we used to be merry over in the eighties. i remember one delightful evening at the codgers’ hall. it would have been more delightful still, but for a raw-boned irishman, who rose towards eleven o’clock and requested to be informed if any other speaker was wishful to make any more jokes on the subject of ould ireland; because, if so, the raw-boned gentleman was prepared to save time by waiting and dealing with them altogether. but if not, then—so the raw-boned gentleman announced—his intention was to go for the last speaker and the last speaker but two at once and without further warning.

no other humourist rising, the raw-boned gentleman proceeded to make good his threat, with the result that the fun degenerated somewhat. even on the boer war we used to whisper jokes to one another in quiet places. in this fiscal question there must be fun. where is it?

for days i thought of little else. my laundress—as we call them in the temple—noticed my trouble.

“mrs. wilkins,” i confessed, “i am trying to think of something innocently amusing to say on the fiscal question.”

“i’ve ’eard about it,” she said, “but i don’t ’ave much time to read the papers. they want to make us pay more for our food, don’t they?”

“for some of it,” i explained. “but, then, we shall pay less for other things, so that really we shan’t be paying more at all.”

“there don’t seem much in it, either way,” was mrs. wilkins’ opinion.

“just so,” i agreed, “that is the advantage of the system. it will cost nobody anything, and will result in everybody being better off.”

“the pity is,” said mrs. wilkins “that pity nobody ever thought of it before.”

“the whole trouble hitherto,” i explained, “has been the foreigner.”

“ah,” said mrs. wilkins, “i never ’eard much good of ’em, though they do say the almighty ’as a use for almost everything.”

“these foreigners,” i continued, “these germans and americans, they dump things on us, you know.”

“what’s that?” demanded mrs. wilkins.

“what’s dump? well, it’s dumping, you know. you take things, and you dump them down.”

“but what things? ’ow do they do it?” asked mrs. wilkins.

“why, all sorts of things: pig iron, bacon, door-mats—everything. they bring them over here—in ships, you understand—and then, if you please, just dump them down upon our shores.”

“you don’t mean surely to tell me that they just throw them out and leave them there?” queried mrs. wilkins.

“of course not,” i replied; “when i say they dump these things upon our shores, that is a figure of speech. what i mean is they sell them to us.”

“but why do we buy them if we don’t want them?” asked mrs. wilkins; “we’re not bound to buy them, are we?”

“it is their artfulness,” i explained, “these germans and americans, and the others; they are all just as bad as one another—they insist on selling us these things at less price than they cost to make.”

“it seems a bit silly of them, don’t it?” thought mrs. wilkins. “i suppose being foreigners, poor things, they ain’t naturally got much sense.”

“it does seem silly of them, if you look at it that way,” i admitted, “but what we have got to consider is, the injury it is doing us.”

“don’t see ’ow it can do us much ’arm,” argued mrs. wilkins; “seems a bit of luck so far as we are concerned. there’s a few more things they’d be welcome to dump round my way.”

“i don’t seem to be putting this thing quite in the right light to you, mrs. wilkins,” i confessed. “it is a long argument, and you might not be able to follow it; but you must take it as a fact now generally admitted that the cheaper you buy things the sooner your money goes. by allowing the foreigner to sell us all these things at about half the cost price, he is getting richer every day, and we are getting poorer. unless we, as a country, insist on paying at least twenty per cent. more for everything we want, it is calculated that in a very few years england won’t have a penny left.”

“sounds a bit topsy turvy,” suggested mrs. wilkins.

“it may sound so,” i answered, “but i fear there can be no doubt of it. the board of trade returns would seem to prove it conclusively.”

“well, god be praised, we’ve found it out in time,” ejaculated mrs. wilkins piously.

“it is a matter of congratulation,” i agreed; “the difficulty is that a good many other people say that far from being ruined, we are doing very well indeed, and are growing richer every year.”

“but ’ow can they say that,” argued mrs. wilkins, “when, as you tell me, those trade returns prove just the opposite?”

“well, they say the same, mrs. wilkins, that the board of trade returns prove just the opposite.”

“well, they can’t both be right,” said mrs. wilkins.

“you would be surprised, mrs. wilkins,” i said, “how many things can be proved from board of trade returns!”

but i have not yet thought of that article for pilson.