AN UNEMPLOYED GENIUS.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 119, 11 October 1902, Page 17

AN UNEMPLOYED GENIUS.

(B\ H 0 D )

JOHN GRUB shambled up to the back door of a handsome suburban villa, with his best unemployed, woe-begone asneot of countenance, his toes through his boots, a hungry look m his eyes, and a carefully cultivated C °Hewas at once confronted by the kindly lady of the house, Mrs. EmeraldGreen who still had upon her face the lingering glamour of the Simultaneous Minion and the rouge pot. With a tender glance of pity, she asked of the "poor wayfaring man "as she mentally styled him, what she could do for him. 'I was just lookin' for a job, mum, answered John Grub, as he pressed his hands to his chest. "What are you?" "Well mum, I'm » plumber myselt but I'd turn me 'and to anythmk to make an honest hvin' I've a wife and big family. One of 'em is down Tilth somethink or other. The doctor thought at first that it was Bubonic— "Ugh'" rasped Mrs. Emerald-Green, as she retreated a few steps m horror. "But " continued John Grub reassuringly "they decided it was only poverty of the blood due to starvation "Are you hungry, my poor man "Well mum, I don't like to sp_ > so for, although I'm a workm'-man, lave me feelin'sf but I've fasted for three days and two nights." The "poor, wayfaring man was then invited into the" kitchen, and provided with a substantial meal. Whilst stowing away the provender, and provided tamed bv his hostess with a short homily on the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death, which, however, it may have touched his heart had but a very small effect on his appetite. Having been told bv Mrs. Emerald-Green that she was sorry she had no work to offer him, he was accorded permission— at his own request— to call again in a day or two. . . The benevolent lady watched him as he walked away. refreshed, apparently both in body and spirit and muttered, as she saw him pass out of the gate "Ah ' ->oor wanderer, poor, but honest' What a beautiful line that is which occurs, I think, in one of John Wesley s hymns— 'An honest man's the noblest work of God.' " Two days afterwards John Grub repeated his visit to the suburban villa.

With well simulated sorrow, punctuated uitli mechanical coughs and halt-sup-piessed symptoms of hunger, he heard the kind-hearted lady tell of a seneus calamity, which, though it meant loss to her mifrht mean nrofit to him. bix feet of iron gutterm" was hanging down the wall of the house, the bath wastepipe was broken, and the sewer ventpipe was lying on the ground. She thought it must be the work of burglars, but, "after all," she remarked, as she bestowed a kindly look at John Grub "it might be a special providence the result of last night's storm, mgood man, to put a little work in your way and I don't mind the small expense. . . ,i John Grub danced critically at the wreck, and said he did not think it was the work of burglars. He rather inclined to the snecial providence theory. When fairly started on the work, after having taken a whole day to "go and fetch his tools," which consisted of an old hammer and a soldering-iron he soliloquised thus on the top of a ladder "Wot the unemployed want is genius. It ain't no good goin' howlin to Parliament or the Simultaneous Mission. Genius is the thing. If there ain't no work knookin' around, yer must make work. That's wot I calls workin' on the co-operative system. It didn't take me more'n 'arf an hour last night to come 'ere an' do all the damage I'm now repairin'. I'm. the special providence," he chuckled, as he gently fixed up the vent-pipe, so that it would bo sure to fall down again in a week. "Genius is the thing — there y'are'"