Page:The Thrill Book Volume 1 Issue 1 (1919-03-01).djvu/33

THE THRILL BOOK ing to you at all but arrant curiosity about unessentials.”

“It’s a bit thick, coming into my house, with no clothes on, to tell me off like this!”

“I've always been in your house. You think I’m absurd because I’ve no clothes on. Stand up. You can now. Then see which of us two is the most absurd.”

Mr. Panton got to his feet shakily, and looked down at himself. His lounge coat came to his knees, his hands were somewhere inside the sleeves; he felt his collar round his ears, and his trousers, which had been a shade short, were in folds round his legs.

“Don't you think you look a little absurd?”

“My clothes have grown!”

“You argue wrongly; you have shrunk.”

“I’ve shrunk? Then where's the rest of me gone?”

“I’ve taken half of us. Half of us is mine, you know. When I was ejected from your body, I had to materialize myself, and, since you were my partner in it, I’ve borrowed, possibly forever, though 1 don’t know, half of your frame. That was quite fair, for I’ve always had as much right to it as you.”

“Do you mean that?”

“When you are better acquainted with me you'll know I never say anything I do not mean. Evasion is not one of my functions, and I function perfectly normally. I’m afraid you'll miss me, but I shall always be here, so if you want advice—and you'll find you will—I’ll give it to you. That’s one of the things I’m for.”

“Do you mean to say you're part of me, that I’ve suddenly become twins?”

“You always were twins; every man has two entities, the objective self and the subliminal self. You, the objective self, are the portion which concerns itself with futilities, like getting on in the world, out-shining your neighbors, and all that sort of thing. I, the subliminal self, am that part of you whose business it is to concern itself with the things that matter. For instance, when you’ve wanted to do something rotten, I’ve shown you very clearly what a beast you were. If you remember, you called me conscience then, and snorted at me; but I can say this much good for you—you've nearly always done what I advised, and when you haven't I’ve made you very uncomfortable, haven’t I?”

“You have.”

“That’s another of the things I’m for. By the way, I find I’m getting very cold.”

“Oh, are you?”

“Yes. I’m going up to bed.”

“Oh, are you?”

“I’ve said so. You'd better come, too?”

“And what bed do you think you're going to?”

“Our bed.”

“Our bed!” Mr. Panton mocked.

“Yes. You're very slow to realize things.”

“What things?”

“Well, this, for instance—that it’s just as much my bed as yours.”

“Oh, is it? We'll see about that!”

“Naturally. Why do you say needless things? I’ve often wondered. Of course, we shall see about it.”

The naked figure turned away, and started to upstairs, Mr. Panton threw the candlestick at it, and hit it on the thigh. The flame went out, but almost before it had done so the angry little man—for he was a little man now, a very little man—jumped agitatedly, feeling on his own thigh the sensation of a burn.

“That was very stupid of you. I’ve already explained to you—now, haven’t I?—that you and I are one. If you'd used your reason you would have known that anything that hurt me must hurt you,”

“Oh!” said Mr. Panton.

“That ought to have been obvious to you. You needn't tell me where the bedroom is. I know.”

Apparently Mr. Panton sat at the foot of the stairs for some time, wondering what to do. This impossible person seemed to have come to stay. How could he be got rid of? Mr. Panton saw no way, For instance, what was there to prevent him from saying that he was himself? That is—it was very muddling—what was to prevent this newcomer from telling everybody that he was him? He looked so like him that nobody would know he was not him. It might end by him having him driven out of his own house, for he was obviously a very clever fellow, and much more likely to be able to persuade people that he was him than he himself was likely to be able to demonstrate that he was not himself, and if he could not persuade people that he was himself, while the other managed to make them believe that it was he who was, then what would he—Mr. Panton—do? Mr. Panton understood this. He followed it all, because he knew what he meant.

II.

HE outsider, looking at the thing from a detached point of view, would have had another doubt, and that doubt would have been whether the man without clothes, or the man with clothes, was the original Mr. Panton, for they were so utterly alike that there was absolutely no evidence by which to choose. Mr. Panton was certain that he was Mr. Panton, but the other was just as certain that he was as much Mr. Panton as Mr. Panton was, and had gone to his—his refers to both of them—bed on that assumption.

Panton was not troubling himself with these abstruse theories. What was blistering his mind was the problem of how to get his bed back and eject the repulsive person who had gone to it, not to sleep, but to be warm. He sat there, and he wished that his wife—good, sensible woman—were only at home to tell him what to do. Then he wished that she would never come home, for which of the two would she choose? Would she choose either?

Would she not say that men do not shrink and that, therefore, neither of the two was her husband, but that both were only extremely bad imitations? Against that was the fact that he could remind her with circumstantial details of ten thousand little intimate things in their lives together. But then, so, apparently, could this other fellow.

It was about now that Panton saw red, and rushed upstairs, His war cry was:

“Conscience oughtn’t to come alive.”

He charged into the bedroom.

“What are you excited about now?” the stranger said. “You get more and more inept.”