Page:Zangwill-King of schnorrers.djvu/201

Rh "It isn't so much the new address I complain of, it's the old. Just imagine what a weary grind it has been to master—'109, Little Turncot Street, Chapelby Road, St. Pancras.' For the last eighteen months I have been grappling with it, and now, just as I am letter perfect and postcard secure, behold all my labour destroyed, all my pains made ridiculous. It's the waste that vexes me. Here is a piece of information, slowly and laboriously acquired, yet absolutely useless. Nay, worse than useless; a positive hindrance. For I am just as slow at forgetting as at picking up. Whenever I want to think of your address, up it will spring, '109, Little Turncot Street, Chapelby Road, St. Pancras.' It cannot be scotched—it must lie there blocking up my brains, a heavy, uncouth mass, always ready to spring at the wrong moment; a possession of no value to anyone but the owner, and not the least use to him."

He paused, brooding on the thought in moody silence. Suddenly his face changed.

"But isn't it of value to anybody but the owner?" he exclaimed excitedly. " Are there not persons in the world who would jump at the chance of acquiring it? Don't stare at me as if I was a comet. Look here! Suppose some one had come to me eighteen months ago and said, 'Patrick, old man, I have a memory I don't want. It's 109, Little Turncot Street, Chapelby Road, St. Pancras! You're welcome to it, if it's any use to you.' Don't you think I would have fallen on that man's—or woman's—neck, and watered it with my tears? Just think what a saving of brain-force it would have been to me—how many petty vexations it would have spared me! See here, then! Is your last place let?"

"Yes," I said. "A Mr. Marrow has it now."

"Ha!" he said, with satisfaction. "Now there must be lots of Mr. Marrow's friends in the same predicament as I