THE TORTURED TUTOR: A DIALOGUE OF THE DEAD

“The question is,” said Pluto to the deceased Tutor, “which of our penalties we can assign to you. Something you must have, you know: it’s the rule of the place.”

“Sorry to hear you say so,” replied the Tutor. “I had hoped that perhaps I might be allowed a little quiet to enjoy the pleasant warmth—my doctor really sent me here as an alternative to Algiers—and possibly throw in a little journalistic work which would advertise you in the evening papers. You’re not known enough up there.”

“Not known? Why, surely you yourself must often have been recommended to—”

“Of course, of course,” the Tutor hastily interrupted,—“but not by any one whose opinion or advice I at all respected. Whereas if I might just have leisure to look round and jot things down, now that I am here, I could put you in touch with specialists who—”

“Now, look here,” said the Monarch, “if you’re going to stay here at all, you must please to remember that this isn’t a University. I simply won’t have idlers loafing round wasting their own time and demoralizing society with their lazy habits. Pardon my abruptness” (he continued, more mildly), “but with all the exclusiveness in the world I can’t prevent our getting a little mixed now and then, and if people come here with academic ideas I really couldn’t be responsible for order and morality. We should be as Anglo-Indian as Olympus in no time.”

“Very true! very true!” said the Shade. “I quite see. Satan finds some mischief still—eh? as I used to say when I was a Dean. Since you really insist on it, I suppose there had better be some trifling torture by way of occupation. Only look here—it mustn’t be any of the things I used to do up above. Quite absurd, you know, to go on reading the same books you did at school—no, I mean, to be made to continue on the same old lines I followed before I came up—down, I should say. It’s so monotonous, and it isn’t improving.”

“Well,” said Pluto, “we’ll see what can be done, on that assumption. It does rather limit possibilities, though, doesn’t it? You see I have to confess that, considering it’s the nineteenth century, we are a little behind the times—no great variety in the matter of punishments.”

“Why don’t you bring them up to date?” asked the visitor.

“Practically,” he replied, “it’s a question of expense. With funds, I could do much more. Roasting over a slow fire, for instance, is good: they have that in another place: but just think of the coal bill! Then viva-voceing and vivisecting without anæsthetics are of course admirable; but the cost of expert labour involved would be ruinous. Result is, that nearly all my penalties are self-acting and consequently simple in design; and, on the whole, except in the case of blasés people who come here with a too varied experience, they answer tolerably well.”

“All right,” said the Tutor, “suggest an occupation.”

“Let me see,” said the Ruler of the Shades, and he pondered a few moments. “How would it be, now, if you were to take a turn with our friend Sisyphus? He rolls a big stone up a hill, and just as he thinks it’s going to get to the top, down it comes again—most disappointing. Quite inexpensive, and very healthy, I should say, and really, as an object-lesson in the force of gravity, not uninstructive.”

“Won’t do at all,” replied the Tutor. “In the Vacations I was always walking up hills and having to come down before I got to the top. Then in the Term I used to teach Logic to passmen; and really, if you think—”

“Yes, yes,” Pluto agreed; “the occupations would be practically identical. Of course, that won’t suit you. Well, then, there’s Ixion, who goes round on a wheel.”

“I’m a bicyclist myself,” objected the Tutor.

“Are you? Pity, too, because Ixion says his wheel’s old-fashioned; he wants a new one with pneumatic tyres warranted puncturable, which shows that he is really entering into the spirit of the thing. You might have had his old one for a song, I’m sure. However, what do you say to calling on those Danaid girls, and getting them to teach you their little industry? There, again, you have simplicity itself. Take a can with a hole in the bottom, go on pouring water into it—”

“I thought I told you,” murmured the deceased, wearily, “that I have followed the profession of teaching.”

“Very true; I had forgotten. Don’t know what we can do to suit you, really! Perhaps you’d like to imitate Theseus—sedet aeternumque sedebit, as Virgil said. Astonishing how Virgil picked these details up! There’s old Theseus, sitting like a hen. They say he’s as tired of sitting as if he were a rowing-man.”

“As an ex-member of the Board of the Faculty of Arts—” began the Tutor.

“Ah, dear me!” replied Pluto. “Then that won’t do either? Those Boards must be excellent from my point of view. I have often wished I had one or two down here. But I’m really afraid we’re getting to the end of the list. And, you know, if we can’t provide you with anything, back you’ll have to go. I won’t keep you, eating your head off. But, talk of eating! shall I put you up beside Prometheus, and ask his eagle to do a little overtime work by taking a turn at your liver? I am afraid we could hardly stand you a private eagle all to yourself. It is said to be quite painful; I really don’t think you can have gone through that, with all your experience.”

“Oh yes I have,” returned the Tutor; “a long course of Hall dinners has familiarized me with every possibility in the way of liver trouble. The eagle business would be the merest crambe repetita.”

“Bless the man!” cried Pluto, justly provoked. “Very well; then you can’t stay here, that’s all. I’ve given you all the alternatives Hades has at its disposal, and you tell us you have been through them all in your University! All I can say is, you had better go back to it, and stay there.”

“The Bursar,” said the Tutor, “will not be best pleased to see me again. He thinks he has got my Fellowship, and is going to use it for the benefit of the College farms. I can tell you he won’t like it one bit when I reappear at the College Meeting.”

“The Bursar and I shall have plenty of time for an explanation—later,” said Pluto.