Х.Г. Уэлс (H. G. Wells)Mr Ledbetter's Vacation
My friend Mr Ledbetter is a round-faced little man, with mild eyes and a deep voice. He wears glasses, and has an elaborate manner of speech. He is a vicar now, but this elaborate clearness of speech has remained from his schoolmaster's days. Our friendship seems strange to many people. But that is because they do not know of my friendly connection with Mr Ledbetter's past.
About that past I want to tell here. And the beginning of the story goes a long way back; indeed, it is now nearly twenty years since fate brought Mr Ledbetter, so to speak, into my hands.
In those days I was living in Jamaica, and Mr Ledbetter was a schoolmaster in England.
The business began at a little seaside town during Mr Ledbetter's summer vacation. He came there for a greatly needed rest, with a brown portmanteau, a new white and black straw hat, and two pairs of white flannel trousers. He was naturally very glad to have a rest - for he was not very fond of the boys he taught. After dinner he fell into a discussion with a talkative person who lived in the same boarding-house. This talkative person was the only other man in the house. Their discussion concerned the sad disappearance of wonder and adventure in these latter days. The talkative person was particularly eloquent on the loss of human courage through security, and Mr Ledbetter readily agreed with him. Mr Ledbetter took rather freely the excellent whisky the talkative person offered him. But he did not become drunk, he was simply very eloquent.
And after that long talk of the brave old days, he went out alone and up the moonlit cliff road where the villas are grouped together.
As he walked up the silent road he thought of his fate that had called him to such a dull life as a pedagogue's. What a prosaic existence he led, so colourless! Where could he show his bravery? And suddenly came a doubt, a strange doubt. Was he - Mr Ledbetter - really, after all, so brave as he supposed?
The talkative man had spoken enviously of crime. "The burglar," he said, "is the only true adventurer left on earth. Think of his fight against the whole civilised world!" And Mr Ledbetter had agreed with him. Now, he tried to compare his own courage and that of a criminal. "I could do all that," said Mr Ledbetter. "I want to do all that. Only I do not give way to my criminal impulses. My moral courage restrains me." But he doubted even while he told himself these things.