英语短篇小说欣赏-A Friend in Need
A Friend in NeedSomerset Maugham
Some people seem easy to understand: their character appears obvious on
first meeting. Appearances, however, can be deceptive.
For thirty years now I have been studying my fellowmen. I do not know very
much about them. I shrug my shoulders when people tell me that their first
impressions of a person are always right. I think they must have small insight
or great vanity. For my own part I find that the longer I know people the more
they puzzle me.
These reflections have occurred to me because I read in this morning's
paper that Edward Hyde Burton had died at Kobe. He was a merchant and he had
been in business in Japan for many years. I knew him very little, but he
interested me because once he gave me a great surprise. Unless I had heard the
story from his own lips, I should never have believed that he was capable of
such an action. It was more startling because both in appearance and manner he
suggested a very definite type. Here if ever was a man all of a piece. He was a
tiny little fellow, not much more than five feet four in height, and very
slender, with white hair, a red face much wrinkled, and blue eyes. I suppose he
was about sixty when I knew him. He was always neatly and quietly dressed in
accordance with his age and station.
Though his offices were in Kobe, Burton often came down to Yokohama. I
happened on one occasion to be spending a few days there, waiting for a ship,
and I was introduced to him at the British Club. We played bridge together. He
played a good game and a generous one. He did not talk very much, either then or
later when we were having drinks, but what he said was sensible. He had a quiet,
dry humor. He seemed to be popular at the club and afterwards, when he had gone,
they described him as one of the best. It happened that we were both staying at
the Grand Hotel and next day he asked me to dine with him. I met his wife, fat,
elderly, and smiling, and his two daughters. It was evidently a united and
affectionate family. I think the chief thing that struck me about Burton was his
kindliness. There was something very pleasing in his mild blue eyes. His voice
was gentle; you could not imagine that he could possibly raise it in anger; his
smile was benign. Here was a man who attracted you because you felt in him a
real love for his fellows. At the same time he liked his game of cards and his
cocktail, he could tell with point a good and spicy story, and in his youth he
had been something of an athlete. He was a rich man and he had made every penny
himself. I suppose one thing that made you like him was that he was so small and
frail; he aroused your instincts of protection. You felt that he could not bear
to hurt a fly.
One afternoon I was sitting in the lounge of the Grand Hotel when Burton
came in and seated himself in the chair next to mine.
"What do you say to a little drink?"
He clapped his hands for a boy and ordered two gin fizzes. As the boy
brought them a man passed along the street outside and seeing me waved his
hand.
"Do you know Turner?" said Burton as I nodded a greeting.
"I've met him at the club. I'm told he's a remittance man."
"Yes, I believe he is. We have a good many here."
"He plays bridge well."
"They generally do. There was a fellow here last year, oddly enough a
namesake of mine, who was the best bridge player I ever met. I suppose you never
came across him in London. Lenny Burton he called himself. I believe he'd
belonged to some very good clubs." "No, I don't believe I remember the
name."
"He was quite a remarkable player. He seemed to have an instinct about the
cards. It was uncanny. I used to play with him a lot. He was in Kobe for some
time."
Burton sipped his gin fizz.
"It's rather a funny story," he said. "He wasn't a bad chap. I liked him.
He was always well-dressed and smart-looking. He was handsome in a way with
curly hair and pink-and-white cheeks. Women thought a lot of him. There was no
harm in him, you know, he was only wild. Of course he drank too much. Those sort
of fellows always do. A bit of money used to come on for him once a quarter and
he made a bit more by card-playing. He won a good deal of mine, I know
that."
Burton gave a kindly chuckle. I knew from my own experience that he could
lose money at bridge with a good grace. He stroked his shaven chin with his thin
hand; the veins stood out on it and it was almost transparent.
"I suppose that is why he came to me when he went broke, that and the fact
that he was a namesake of mine. He came to see me in my office one day and asked
me for a job. I was rather surprised. He told me that there was no more money
coming from home and he wanted to work. I asked him how old he was.
"'Thirty-five,' he said.
"'And what have you been doing hitherto?' I asked him.
"'Well, nothing very much,' he said.
"I couldn't help laughing.
"'I'm afraid I can't do anything for you just yet,' I said. 'Come back and
see me in another thirty-five years, and I'll see what I can do.'
"He didn't move. He went rather pale. He hesitated for a moment and then he
told me that he had had bad luck at cards for some time. He hadn't been willing
to stick to bridge, he'd been playing poker, and he'd got trimmed. He hadn't a
penny. He'd pawned everything he had. He couldn't pay his hotel bill and they
wouldn't give him any more credit. He was down and out. If he couldn't get
something to do he'd have to commit suicide."
"I looked at him for a bit. I could see now that he was all to pieces. He'd
been drinking more than usual and he looked fifty. The girls wouldn't have
thought so much of him if they'd seen him then.
"'Well isn't there anything you can do except play cards?' I asked him.
"'I can swim,' he said.
"'Swim!'
"I could hardly believe my ears; it seemed such an insane answer to
give.
"'I swam for my university.'
"I got some glimmering of what he was driving at. I've known too many men
who were little tin gods at their university to be impressed by it.
"'I was a pretty good swimmer myself when I was a young man,' I said.
"Suddenly I had an idea."
Pausing in his story, Burton turned to me.
"Do you know Kobe?" he asked.
"No," I said, "I passed through it once, but I only spent a night
there."
"Then you don't know the Shioya Club. When I was a young man I swam from
there round the beacon and landed at the creek of Tarumi. It's over three miles
and it's rather difficult on account of the currents round the beacon. Well, I
told my young namesake about it and I said to him that if he'd do it I'd give
him a job.
"I could see he was rather taken aback.
"'You say you're a swimmer,' I said.
"'I'm not in very good condition,' he answered.
"I didn't say anything. I shrugged my shoulders. He looked at me for a
moment and then he nodded.
"'All right,' he said. 'When do you want me to do it?'
"I looked at my watch. It was just after ten.
"'The swim shouldn't take you much over an hour and a quarter. I'll drive
round to the creek at half past twelve and meet you. I'll take you back to the
club to dress and then we'll have lunch together.'
"'Done,' he said.
"We shook hands. I wished him good luck and he left me. I had a lot of work
to do that morning and I only just managed to get to the creek at Tarumi at half
past twelve. But I needn't have hurried; he never turned up."
"Did he funk it at the last moment?" I asked.
"No, he didn't funk it. He started all right. But of course he'd ruined his
constitution by drink and dissipation. The currents round the beacon were more
than he could manage. We didn't get the body for about three days."
I didn't say anything for a moment or two. I was a trifle shocked. Then I
asked Burton a question.
"When you made him that offer of a job, did you know he'd be drowned?"
He gave a little mild chuckle and he looked at me with those kind and
candid blue eyes of his. He rubbed his chin with his hand.
"Well, I hadn't got a vacancy in my office at the moment."
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